Silent Humanities
by The Soul Siblings
Summary: After a surprise attack, Gaara and his little sister Hachibi are left in a strange new world, injured and alone
1. A New World

Silent Humanities

Astral- Hello everyone! I'm Astral, one of the Soul Siblings, and this is our very first fanfiction story!

Mirokai- FIRST FANFIC WOOOOO!

Gaara- Shut up Miro. We do not own Naruto or Harry Potter, those rights belong to Masashi Kishimoto and J.K. Rowling.

Astral- We also don't own the story plot. It rightfully belongs to our dear friend ShadowedAuthor. But we have her/his permission to use it. The only one we own is our OC Hachibi. Who is Gaara's five year old little sister.

Gaara- Not my little sister, the Gaara from Naruto's little sister. We only share names.

Mirokai- I still think it's pretty dang funny!

Gaara- SHUT UP MIRO!

Astral- Really guys, again? Anywho, here are some things too keep in mind.

We did not mean to name her after the eight tail. We got this idea from a dream and that's what her name was, so deal with it.

Instead of Karura, Gaara's mother, dying from giving birth to Gaara, she only got extremely sick and Gaara never saw her 'cause she was in quarantine like, all the time. Hachibi's birth is what caused Karura's death.

Because of Gaara's lack of control over Shukaku, Gaara's father ended up taking a quarter of the bijuu and sealing it into Hachibi before she was born. Turning Gaara into an overprotective brother.

Hachibi was the only one Gaara thought of as his sibling before the Chunin Exams. Because of their demon related connection with one another.

Because of Shukaku, Gaara and Hachibi share relatively the same mind. So they can relay thoughts to each other telepathically. They act alike and Hachibi idolizes her older brother. They have trouble discerning whose thoughts are whose and their chakra flows continuously through the other as well as themselves.

In giving Gaara a little sister, we have had to portray him a little differently than cannon version. So deal with it.

Okay, that's it! Hachibi 101. Please review our fanfic! Pointers would be helpful, but no flames please. And we apologize for any mistakes in the writing. Our bad.

Mirokai-REVIEW PLEASE!

Gaara-(covers ears) Can't you listen to me for once!

* * *

Sabaku no Gaara and Sabaku no Hachibi had been having a bad day. That, in itself, was not an unusual occurrence, but it had been quite some time since they'd had a day quite as disconcerting as this one. It had been a few months since their fight with the Shitenshonin from the Takumi Village and Naruto had left for his training mission with one of the legendary Sannin. Ever since his fateful encounter with Seimei Shukaku had been almost completely dormant inside of them, except for the occasional headache on a full moon. They hadn't even killed any of their fellow Suna citizens in a while. They had also been sleeping more often, which was a big plus. Overall, things had been going fairly well.

Things had been going well, until Gaara's past had come back to bite them.

The past, in this instance, was in the form of a low ranking Jounin from their own village, or to be more precise, this particular ninja's son. Several years prior to the Chunin exam and subsequent war, a few years before Hachibi had been born, seeing as Hachibi was only five, Gaara had been tormented by his 'inner demons' one night and struck out at the first person he saw. That person just so happened to be the Gennin son of the man currently attacking them. As soon as Gaara had seen the Gennin boy, he had called his deadly sand and crushed him without hesitation. To this day Gaara regretted taking that boy's life, along with every other victim he had mercilessly and needlessly slaughtered, Hachibi having the same regrets despite her short life, but that did not mean that when a kunai appeared to fly out of nowhere towards Hachibi Gaara wouldn't snatch her up and block the kunai with his sand. Nor did he allow the exploding tag on the end of the kunai to burn them. You see, Gaara is very protective of his little sister. Gaara hated what he had done, but a certain blonde Jinchuuriki had taught him and his little sister to become better people so that they could protect the people precious to them, and strengthen their care for each other. With that in mind, the tormented older redhead parried another kunai strike from the unknown assailant, all the while holding Hachibi close to his chest so as to shield her, the assailant appeared to be, from the look of his uniform, from their very own village.

The elder of the two sand users jumped back to put some distance between him and the unknown masked Suna shinobi to plan his next move. He had been under the impression that his village had stopped trying to kill him and his angel of a little sister; then again, this assassin didn't come as that much of a surprise, given their blood splattered past and high rates of vendetta placed against them.

" What are you doing?" Gaara demanded in his usual straight-to-the-point way, silently planning his route of escape, or at least somewhere to hide the trembling form in his arms. Both would have been easier if they weren't currently in a valley, several miles from any possible backup.

" Avenging my son! I'm gonna kill you… you monster!" This time the infuriated ninja formed several hand seals before several loose pebbles and rocks rose into the air in front of him before flying straight for Gaara and Hachibi at bullet-like speeds.

Unconsciously, their sand protected them just in time, but whilst the wall of sand obscured his view, the Jounin in front of him dove to the side of the valley wall and jumped off of it, throwing a weapon at the person he had sworn vengeance on, as well as the little trembling bundle in his arms. If it had been anyone weaker than a Jounin, then the shuriken that had flown out of the man's hand would not have even come close to Gaara and Hachibi, but the multi bladed weapon came so close to them that he had to use the most of their sand as a precaution to keep the blade from reaching Hachibi's neck.

Unfortunately for the current defender, this was only a distraction for the assailant to finish setting up his seal. Gaara's attention was only drawn to the circular array at his feet that he had been lured into standing on when the symbols seemingly carved into the ground started to glow brightly.

" You demon! You took my son from me, now it's payback time!" The hysterical shinobi screamed as he jumped over the top of Gaara and Hachibi's shared sand and landed in front of the wary teen who was now gathering the sand at his feet to deal with the rogue ninja.

" I'm gonna send you straight to hell!" he roared before he slapped his hand on the base of the circular seal, took his kunai, raised it above his flattened hand and with one final scream, plunged the dark steel dagger into the waiting appendage.

The elder of the two Ichibi hosts was baffled by this show of self harm, to the point of raising one of his invisible eyebrows. Hachibi started to shake more violently and gripped Gaara's neck more tightly, Gaara, in turn, gripped his little sister tighter as well. Gaara refused to let whatever plan the crazed ninja had concocted happen. The older insomniac gathered the rest of their sand and formed a spear in his hand, ready to kill the nuisance in his way; though, he wanted to note, it was out of his and Hachibi's self defence this time, and not enjoyment.

The former psychopath was about to throw the lance at the pinned man kneeling only a few feet away from him, but as his arm drew back, the other one wrapped protectively around Hachibi, he actually dropped the sand javelin and his body convulsed with pain unlike any he had felt before as blue bolts of electricity sizzled through the doubled over teen's body. He could tell Hachibi was feeling the same thing as he heard her cry out in pain, he had barely managed to keep his hold on her.

" Kinjutsu! Demon world transport!" the bleeding man on the ground spoke as he used his one un-impaled hand, now free of the kunai, to form a single hand sign in front of his face. After he had announced the name of his jutsu he began to laugh maniacally.

The pained teenager could do nothing to stop the forbidden technique as it was completed and the man, who had tears streaming down his face, howled with laughter, appearing to melt into the glowing circular seal.

The man continued his uproarious cachinnation even as his face started to turn into a flesh colored liquid and poured into the seal that was still paralyzing the immobilized hosts, the elder of which was down on all fours, with one hand still curled protectively around the smaller of the two, as the glowing of the markings intensified.

The light was blinding at this point for Gaara, who could hear others approaching over the crackling of the electricity. The helpless warrior and his kin could only hope that these shinobi were friendly.

As it turned out, they were as friendly as they could have hoped for: their siblings. The pair ran forwards, through the narrow valley, towards their crippled younger siblings who were struggling to stay conscious in the electrically charged field that was subduing them.

Temari and Kankuro had been performing their usual patrols around the village outskirts when they felt an immense burst of chakra coming from the mountains several miles outside the village. Without so much as requesting assistance they sped there as quickly as their feet would carry them. In any other case the pair probably wouldn't have rushed so desperately to the source of the disturbance, but they could only think of one source for that magnitude of chakra and their little red haired brother and sister had gone out on a mission a few hours before in that general direction. When they arrived, they were shocked to see their supposedly demonic younger siblings being electrocuted by blue lightning bolts whilst writhing in a pile of their own sand inside some sort of shining array that neither of them recognized.

Gaara tried to look up at his and Hachibi's older siblings but lost consciousness soon after their arrival because of the pain from the seal holding him and his little sister down, dragging them into the darkness.

Temari gasped as Gaara's head dropped to the ground next to the already unconscious Hachibi and was about to approach them to help in any way she could, but she was held back by Kankuro who quickly shouted,

" Don't! You'll get caught in whatever that thing is as well!"

As soon as the black rimmed eyes had shut the glowing of the array had intensified, unnoticed by Kankuro and Temari, until the light was bright enough for them to have to avert their gazes from it.

Suddenly, in the midst of the crackling of the electricity and the blowing of the wind in the valley, a boom sounded, like nothing either of the two conscious teens in the desert had ever heard before. The explosion may have been in sound only, but as soon as it had been sounded, the entire chasm they were standing in went completely silent, except for the silent echoing of the explosion and the continuing soft howling of the wind that their country was famous for.

Both of the remaining sand siblings looked back for their teammates and family to see nothing, not even the symbols that had been carved into the rock were there anymore. The entire scene had been wiped out. Gaara, Hachibi, their sand and any residual chakra was gone.

Temari looked at the scene and then after finally registering that they were gone, searched the surrounding area for any trace of her younger siblings' or the one tail's chakra, but found nothing. At this revelation, Temari broke down into fits of hysterical tears at the sudden apparent death of their younger siblings. No matter what they had done, Temari and Kankuro still loved them, and now they were gone.

Gaara awoke, or at least it seemed he was awake because of the pain, to a blackness. Not a swirling blackness or a flashing one, but an absolute darkness that made the elder tanuki host question his sight. At least he could still feel the unconscious Hachibi in his arms. He would have dwelled on the worry of blindness but he was interrupted by what seemed to be slashes to his torso, then his back, then to his chest and his legs and his arms. From every conceivable angle, Gaara and Hachibi were cut to shreds. He quickly shielded Hachibi as best he could, but he could tell that she still got some slashes near her head. Whilst this excruciating pain was tearing through his system, he felt a further inexplicable feeling, as if they were being pulled and pushed in every direction and yet still falling. All of these sensations made the battered boy almost slip into a peaceful unconscious slumber once again, but for some reason sleep would not come.

Wherever the injured siblings were time didn't seem to exist, as it felt as if they had been falling for hours upon hours, possibly even days or weeks, and yet there had been no change in visibility, and then, all too suddenly, they were outside of the darkness, still falling, still holding the unconscious Hachibi, but now Hachibi and the sensation of falling were the only movements.

Gaara was glad as he impacted on the relative softness of the grass combined with the sandy remains of their gourd, shielding Hachibi all the while, as the two soft surfaces had stopped the battered ninja from breaking his neck or back after the considerable fall, leaving no one to protect Hachibi. And even more so, because the cold grass aided in numbing the wounds that literally covered his body.

It must have been night time, Gaara surmised, because he couldn't see more than twenty feet away despite the waning moon above them; then again, he was in so much pain, that to think straight enough to focus his eyes would have been a monumental and ultimately impossible task. And he wasn't sure he wanted to see that much, he couldn't have done much even with his sight at that point. At least he could see his little sister still curled in his arms. It turned out the slashing feelings that he had endured for however long they had been in the darkness were in fact cuts littering his body, he had managed to shield Hachibi to some extent, but she still had various cuts all over her tiny body as well. Most were relatively shallow or harmless but one or two were larger and definitely more serious if left untreated. Adding blood loss to possible hypothermia and the inability to move or help himself or Hachibi, things weren't looking to good for the ex-sociopaths.

Sirius Black was by no means a precautious man, or at least he hadn't been so before, but ever since he had managed to escape from Azkaban prison using his animagus abilities, he had been more careful than he had previously thought possible. That being said, that didn't mean that when he was longingly staring out of the highest window of his current hideaway, the Shrieking Shack, and saw someone suddenly start to fall from the darkened sky, he wasn't going to go and try to help whoever it was.

Black ran from the bedroom he had been sitting in and morphed into his black dog form as he reached the front of the house before pounding out one of the small dog sized cracks and into the cold grassy grounds outside of the most haunted house in Britain.

When the dog formed man reached his goal it was far from what he expected. The first part of the child that caught his attention was the blazing red hair on the boy's head. Unlike the 'red' hair of the Weasley family that was more akin to orange than actual red, this red head was the colour of blood. The next thing Sirius noticed was the actual blood coming from the countless wounds of the still form in front of him, even seeping through his clothes. As he inspected the boy more closely, he noticed a small bundle in his arms, the tiny form had the same colour hair as the boy, but longer, and was bleeding from countless wounds as well. The sole heir of the Black name could not think of any spell that would have this devastating effect on a body, not even Sectumsempra left this kind of damage, nor did he want to think of a person willing to perform such a horrendous type of magic on children.

The second thing he noticed was the volume of sand surrounding the two still bodies. As if they had been cushioned by the small desert beneath them, neither the boy or the little girl in his arms seemed to have any damage from the fall itself, only the hundreds of cuts all over their bodies.

The escapee looked around the surrounding area to check for dementors or worse: tourists, and after he was sure he was alone he changed back into his raggedy human form and carried the surprisingly light children in his arms back to his hideout. On his way back to his temporary home Sirius couldn't help but slow down too relish the chill in the air. That was one of the few luxuries he enjoyed as a dog, a thick fur coat, but that didn't mean he wouldn't savour any rare chances to feel the cold night's chill on his skin now that he was free, in a manner of speaking. When he reached the doorless house he quickly thought on his feet and used his foot to widen the hole he had been using until that point.

Once inside the rotten and rundown house, the animagus went to work helping the boy and what seemed to be his little sister by the remarkable resemblance. Firstly, he removed the boy's shirt to get a better look at the wounds that seemed to get worse and worse the more he looked, and by what he could tell, the boy took the brunt of the attack, probably to protect his little sister. The man ran to the next room and got a bowl of water to clean some of the blood off before he inspected the wounds properly. For the most part they were superficial lacerations that weren't doing much damage on their own. A few may have grazed an organ or two but the only thing the man could do was wrap them tightly in the cleanest material he could find in the decrepit house and hope for the best.

As he was finishing he was at the boy's neck and, after an inspection, decided to wrap the slash he found there tightly too. Luckily the deep wound on the neck hadn't even touched the jugular, not that a simple wizard like he would have known about human anatomy,but he knew that if neck cut, lots of red stuff coming out, that bad. What was worrying, though, was that the gash sliced through the boy's larynx, later, when inspecting the girl, he would notice how she had a cut in almost the exact same spot and proportions. He wrapped up the neck and a few of the larger cuts that were on the boy's face and setting him down. He then moved on to the small girl.

Whilst Black had worked on the boy's porcelain like face he couldn't help but notice two things, other the incredibly pale skin. Those were: the ridiculously dark shadows around his eyes that looked as if he had gone ten years without sleep, and the large red scar on his forehead that appeared to be some foreign symbol. The girl was similar, but the shadows around her eyes were smaller and less pronounced, probably because she was younger, and the scar on her forehead was a different foreign symbol.

As he sat back, Sirius had to admire his handiwork of the last two hours. The boy was covered in bandages from head to toe, the little girl just the same, and still the convict could see that the boy was around the same age as his godson, if not a little younger, and the girl looked to be about five years old. The jailbird had at least wanted to see Harry as soon as he broke out of prison, but now he couldn't leave the boy and girl for at least a few months, maybe more judging by their wounds. He would have too put off seeing his best friend's son until he came to visit Hogsmeade in the fall as a student.

Sirius checked the both children's pockets for a wand or some kind of identification but found no sign of either. The only thing he found was some sort of bandanna with a metal plate engraved with some sort of hourglass symbol, which was attached to some kind of leather sash that had run up the chest and back for the boy, and the same bandanna could be found on the girl's head, supposedly holding her hair back and giving it the spiky appearance of her brother's.

After a few minutes of watching the shallow breathing of the heavily wounded children, Sirius turned back into a dog and took a small sniff of both their scents, they smelled surprisingly almost the same, and went outside into the night too see if there was anything of theirs left out there. Startlingly, the sand that they had landed in smelt strongly of the two redheads, though the girls was fainter, as if they had been with it for years. Sirius padded up too the patch of sand covered ground and started to dig around in it too see if there was anything buried in there that could help identify the mysterious youths lying in his current refuge.

The dog rejoiced when he discovered something. It was a pouch, no, two pouches, one that smelled more like the boy and one that smelled more like the girl, though he couldn't honestly be sure, given how similar to each other they smelled. The two small purple bags were fairly heavy when Sirius picked them up with his mouth and ran back to the makeshift front door of the shrieking shack. When he was back in the main room he used, where the children were still lying, he reverted to his original form and sat down cross legged to examine what they had been carrying. Perhaps he could find some clue there as to what had happened.

Sirius was shocked to find several knives, star shaped bladed weapons and pads of paper with strange writing on them, though the girl's were smaller than the boy's, probably to fit in her hands better. The writing was different from what was on the two children's foreheads and seemed more like a pattern than actual writing. Maybe it was money?

Sirius was about to pick up the stack of papers to inspect them further when he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. He looked over to see…

Gaara had been having the nicest dream he could remember having; it consisted of him sitting down with his mother and father, his aunt his sisters and his brother and them eating a meal together. They had all talked and laughed and had a nice time with each other. No mention of shinobi or wars or demons. It was so pleasant, he wished he would never wake up. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.

When the panda eyed boy woke he was immediately assaulted by the almost overpowering pain from his wounds, but he pushed through the immense agony to look around himself. He surmised he was in an old shabby house and it was still nighttime, thankfully, Hachibi was lying right next to him, bandaged and unconscious. He then noticed the other person in the room. In any other situation he would have jumped into a defencive stance or cocooned himself and Hachibi in sand, but he could do neither for lack of strength and sand. He couldn't move a muscle.

It was then that Gaara, out of the corner of his eye, saw the man rummaging through his and Hachibi's weapon pouches about to touch their exploding tags. With all the strength he could muster, Gaara opened his mouth and was about to tell him to stop, but nothing came out, no words, no sound, nothing. Fortunately the movement of his mouth was enough to draw the man's attention.

Sirius immediately stopped going through the others' possessions and turned towards the intensely glaring boy on the floor a few feet from him.

" Hello," Sirius started, trying to ease some of the tension he was feeling because of the gaze on him. " My name is… actually, nevermind." He continued, he'd almost revealed he was the murderer wanted by the entire magical and muggle communities, though he wasn't all to sure if the two were even wizards. They didn't have wands, they weren't dressed in wizarding robes, and they had wounds that looked more like they came from a muggle weapon than a wizard's wand. That, and the boy hadn't immediately recognized him from the pictures that were undoubtedly in every bar and on every shop in the wizarding world.

" I found you and the girl outside. You,uh… fell from the sky. Do you remember what happened? Could you tell me your or your little friend's name? Where did you come from?" the man asked, hoping for even a slither of information.

Gaara looked at the scruffy man that sat across from him and once again with great effort opened his mouth to talk but couldn't utter a syllable. The elder redhead tanuki host kept trying to speak but it soon became apparent that he couldn't. One of the cuts had apparently severed his vocal chords, it seemed. After this, the male redhead managed to move himself enough to put his arms around Hachibi, then closed his eyes and went back to sleep. He needed to conserve his energy.

The fugitive of the dementors watched this display until the boy fell back asleep with his arms curled protectively around the smaller of the two and slipped back out of the room as quietly as he could to go and get some food. This had been worrying him whilst he dressed the boy's and girl's wounds. He had been turning into a dog and eating in that form, rabbits and small mammals had been enough to sustain him, but now he had two fully human children who needed to be fed. It made Sirius laugh at the thought that he wanted to take care of Harry one day. He was fairly sure that neither of the groups of children would appreciate a dead rabbit presented to them by a large black dog for dinner.

The man came to his front door and shifted into his 'grim' form and ran off in the woods to hunt, in a manner. First Sirius dealt with his own hunger by finding a cute little bunny rabbit… and eating it. After he was done there he ran to Hogsmeade village to help his new wards.

One may have questioned Sirius' charitable and caring actions towards children he had never met, but it was easily explainable. Sirius had always been a caring person; he had been deprived of the care he craved as a child until he met his best friend James and their various other friends. When he had been sent to the detestable prison he had been removed from anyone he cared about and now that he was out he just wanted someone to talk to. It also didn't hurt that the mysterious children looked a little like Lily, due to the hair and the eyes, and one of them was about the same age as Harry. All of that added to the fact that the last few weeks he had nothing to do except skulk around as a dog or look out of the window longingly at the woods and edges of the village Hogsmeade.

His musings were soon interrupted when he came upon the edge of the woods, marking the beginnings of the sole town for miles around. Sirius made his way around the outskirts until he spotted one of the back alleys he recognized. He recognized this particular ally because, as man may not live on bread alone, Sirius may not live on rabbit and mole alone. He had found this little gem after four days of living in the shrieking shack and eating nothing but woodland creatures.

Padfoot walked into the darkened alley and sat down, waiting for a prize that he was sure would be worth the wait.

Sure enough a few hours later the back door opened to reveal a large burly man carry out a bucket of waste materials from the bakery inside. As soon as the black dog was spotted a large smile was set upon the large man's face before he finished the task and walked back inside in quite a haste whilst leaving the door agape. Soon enough he returned, carrying with him a large loaf of bread, fresh from the oven.

" Ere ya go pooch." the man slurred as he chucked the loaf to the ground as was routine by now. The man had discovered the dog sniffing through shop's bins a couple of weeks ago and had a soft spot for dogs. As such he had brought him a loaf whenever he saw him, which wasn't that often, every two or three days.

Sirius wasted no time before snatching up the bread and carried it back through the woods as quickly as possible. He soon arrived back at the familiar setting of the shack before padding in quietly, dropping the loaf and zooming back out to get something else.

About a quarter of an hour later he arrived back with a slight toothy grin around the rabbit in his mouth. He dropped that too and changed back swiftly while he carried the rabbit and bread upstairs and into the main bedroom too see that the boy was once again awake, still curled around the little form.

" I'll make you some food, do you understand what I am saying?" Sirius questioned with a smile whilst he knelt down and started to strip some of the dry wood from his surroundings to make kindling.

Whilst he worked he looked over to the others in the room to see that the boy was gently nudging the girl as if to wake her, and slowly, she stirred. When the boy saw the tiny form open it's eyes, his gave a small smile to the figure, and in turn the girl smiled back. Then the boy shifted back into expressionless and the girl a small innocent look of cluelessness. The boy then turned to him with the most unreadable expression thought possible, and nodded slowly before turning to the little form in his arms.

A little while later Sirius Black was just finishing cooking the rabbit he had since skinned, cleaned and so forth, before skewering and suspending over the warm fire. It was a warm and well appreciated change after raw meat and plain bread.

Not long after the wrongly convicted man had finished his amatur cooking, he stripped the meat as best he could and used the bread too hold it making a few rabbit sandwiches ready to eat.

The still kneeling man moved over to the lying boy and girl before helping the girl sit up first, he assumed that the boy would want the girl he was so protective about to eat first, the boy let him lift her out of his arms with no resistance. He had been very careful not to reopen any of the wounds that littered the bandaged body, then the course there was the problem of the pain that would certainly be unbearable for any normal human being.

Luckily, Gaara and Hachibi weren't normal human beings; they were shinobi that could handle pain, despite what past Chunin exams may have led to believe.

After she was upright, Hachibi attempted to eat the crudely made bunny sandwich. It was a valiant attempt but what all three had forgotten was the large gash in the hungry but injured girl's throat. After the first try, resulting in a bloodied cough and a few reopened wounds, Hachibi gave up on the food in front of her; instead she turned her head back towards Gaara and hoped the stranger would get the hint and let her back into her brother's arms gently. He did.

Over the next few days Sirius black continued to take care of the mystery teen and his apparent sister, a simple question that was answered a few days ago, who he had been calling Lily one and Lily two in his head. Just a bit of an ironic joke. Though he didn't dare say that particular thought out loud because the teen was scarier than most of the Death Eaters he had ever met, put together. It was the eyes, they were so cold. But they did seem to soften whenever the boy looked at the little red haired girl right next to him.

The falsely accused had been getting bread almost every day and making crude stews as best he could. As far as he could tell, they weren't doing any more damage too little Lily's throat and the elder Lily hadn't suffered any damage; but from what he had seen, both Lilies appeared to be mute or maybe just really quiet.

A week after the children arrived, Sirius had been astounded by the fact that they were both able to stand and walk without help, for the girl, she always held onto the boy's hand though. Well, they were incredibly shaky and could only take a few steps, but to be able to recover from those extensive injuries in such a short amount of time was unheard of without around the clock care from a medical witch or wizard. When Sirius redressed the wounds, most of them were already healed or healing, even for the little girl.

Just over a week after his arrival Gaara was lying where he usually did with his arms around Hachibi, looking over at their caretaker cooking more stew. The elder sand user didn't know what kind of meat it was but the food itself wasn't that bad. At least he and Hachibi were healing normally, for them. As bad as a Jinjuriki had to suffer, there was an upside of super fast healing. What irked Gaara the most was that his and Hachibi's throats didn't seem to be healing at all, only closed over. He guessed their vocal chords had been completely severed and were beyond repair. It didn't really make much difference to their already fairly distant personas but it would be a hindrance in the future.

Gaara stopped his thoughts when he heard the man speak.

" My name, it's Sirius." he said clearly and concisely without any hesitation. Gaara couldn't help but wonder why the man had waited a week before revealing it. He could tell Hachibi was wondering the same thing when she asked him,

' Why did Dog wait so long before telling us his real name?' she asked him through their mind link.

" I'm a criminal on the run. I didn't want to tell you my name because I feared you might have heard of it."

' Funny how your questions are always answered even if you don't voice them aloud.' Gaara said to Hachibi, who in turn nodded.

" I don't suppose you can tell me your names can you?" Sirius asked rhetorically, " I actually knew someone with hair as red as yours' many years ago," he continued absentmindedly. " I guess if I don't know your real names I'll just call you Lily one and Lily two."he said with a chuckle and a smile wide enough to show his gruesome blackened teeth as he continued with the cooking.

Both redheads grimaced. They weren't quite happy with the new names of their savior, Gaara not wanting to be called a girl's name, and Hachibi not liking how plain and unfamiliar it was, who was continuing with the cooking, oblivious to the coldest stares he would ever receive, or more importantly, his back. Nor did he or the Sabaku children notice the faintest sign of blush creep onto Gaara's and Hachibi's faces.

It was only a few days later when Gaara was able to walk on his own, Hachibi still being a little shaky had to hold onto Gaara's hand still, but him being able to walk unaided was a massive relief to him. They hadn't done anything since they had arrived except the occasional trip to the bathroom and a shaky walk around the room too stave off muscular dystrophy. Both of which had been painful but wholly necessary for the both of them.

Gaara's first plan was to go back to the Wind country, or, failing that, at least make it too the Fire country. Unfortunately h didn't know what land they were in or even what continent. Gaara looked over too the man who was sitting at the window, looking forlornly out like he often did when he wasn't preoccupied with taking care of Gaara and Hachibi, he gave a little wave to get the dirty man's attention evr silently before gesturing for a pen, Hachibi, seeing this, copied his movement.

When Sirius looked towards his charges he was shocked to see the gesture they were both making. They had their fingers positioned in a small grip and were waving it in a downwards movement. For most muggles and even shinobi this would have been a clear sign for a pen or a brush and ink in the latter's case, but too the full grown wizard it was undoubtedly, and wrongly, identified as a gesture for a wand.

"You want a wand Lilies? Are you a wizard and a witch?" he asked flabbergasted at his own naivety, " And here I thought you were just a muggle." he laughed as he walked over and sat down.

Both children were confused, mostly by the words 'wand', 'wizard' and 'muggle'; they were so confused that they forgot to glare when they were called by their disliked nickname again. Neither Gaara nor Hachibi had come across the word 'muggle' before, and could only think of children's fairy tales when they heard the words 'wand' and 'wizard', so Gaara was sure that they had been mistaken. In an attempt to convey their ignorance of the subject to the other he tilted his head to the side.

Sirius would have happily lent his wand temporarily to the young 'wizard', but that was long gone. It had been snapped after he was arrested all those years ago like all convicts' wands were.

" Sorry, I don't have a wand anymore."

Gaara shook his head and redid the pen gesture but slower, hoping the kind but utterly oblivious man would get the message.

" Oh, a pen!" Sirius exclaimed in a rare bout of realization and clarity. " I'll see if I can get you two one." he walked to the door, " Oh, and Lilies," he had opened the door, " forget about what I said about wands and wizards, it was all an… umm… joke ." The falsely accused hoped the peeved teen and toddler would buy the quick lie.

They didn't.

After a quick trip to Hogsmeade and back, the dog had managed to craftily swipe a quill from an open window. It was a lucky find by any standards. By the time he got back, both 'Lilies' had gotten dressed in their old, very worn clothes and were sitting by the window having what seemed like a silent conversation. After a few days of having them under his care the man noticed that they seemed to be able to communicate with each other in some way without talking, but he didn't pry, all the same. The black bandannas with the silver metal plate were tied around their necks instead of around their usual places, which was probably too cover up the scars on their throats, or so Sirius guessed. But even though the bandanna wasn't tied around her hair like a headband the girl's hair still looked the same as she had with it on her head, something he marveled at.

As per usual Sirius had changed back into human form before re-entering the derelict haunted house. He walked over too the kids and handed the quill to the teen curious as to what he was going to say first.

As soon as he got the quill, Gaara moved over to a wall and began to write.

' My name is Gaara, not Lily. And my little sister's name is Hachibi.' The deadly glare aimed at Sirius was all the punctuation the message needed.

With a nervous chuckle Sirius said, " I think I liked 'Lily' better. So where do you both come from?"

' Sunagakure, of the Wind country.' he scrawled quickly, but he saw the questioning look on the man's face as he read it, he continued to write, 'of the Elemental Nations.' Still there was no look of recognition on Sirius' face. ' Where are we?'

" You two are in the shrieking shack, just outside of Hogsmeade village." Predictably this didn't earn any sign of acknowledgement so he added, " Very close to Hogwarts." This was sort of a test to see if the two children were in fact young magic users. Nothing. The girl looked at him with a questioning expression while the boy just continued his even looking before writing,

' What country?'

" England, part of Great Britain."

Both redheads sat still in a considerable pause. Before the boy handed the quill to the girl, who then continued the partially written conversation.

' What are wizards?'

This stunned the man who was sat across the from the mute duo, he hadn't expected that question, yet, after he thought about it he realized he should have. The only thing he could do was be honest. He wasn't closely connected enough to any muggles to help the children unless he told them 'the big secret' and helped them through wizarding means, especially the five year old girl.

" Okay but first tell me what happened to you two." said Sirius.

The girl handed the quill back to her older brother and he wrote, ' We were attacked by someone from our village who used a jutsu to send us too a dark place, where we got the wounds, and then we landed here.' Gaara purposefully left out the part about killing the man's son.  
" What is a jut-su?" Sirius asked. Completely mispronouncing the word. The Gaara handed the quill back too Hachibi and she explained,

' A ninjutsu, a ninja technique. It's pronounced jootsoo.' She wrote before shuffling over to another wall, she was running out of writing space, which Gaara assumed would be a hindrance for the rest of their lives if they were to forever be mute.

" I've never heard of a ninjutsu." The baffled man thought outloud.

' A shinobi uses chakra to do various techniques.' Hachibi explained, trying not to go into too much detail about the complex and irrevelent nature of being a ninja.

" And you two are some of these 'shinobi'?" Sirius questioned excitedly. This was extraordinary, to find another culture that used magic completely separated from his own was groundbreaking.

'Yes, I am the youngest shinobi in the history of the Elemental Nations, I passed the exam when I was three.'

" Wow! Could you show me one of your jutsus?"

The girl handed the quill back to the boy.

' Not right now, we need sand to use our techniques. Most ninja have techniques unique to them.' he quickly wrote on the lime green wall.

As the redheads looked back at the man they saw a smile appear on his face before he got to his feet and moved to the door on the other side of the room.

"Wait here." the filthy man ran out of the room and, unknown to Gaara and Hachibi, out of the house still in human form until he was at the edge of the woods where he had first discovered the children's bodies. Sure enough there was still a pile of old sand lying there on the grass. It wasn't as pure as when it had first appeared, dirt was mixed in with it and most of it was damp and unusable, unbeknownst to Sirius who scooped up a large handful and ran back as fast as he could to the fascinating twosome.

The Sabaku no siblings were surprised when they watched the man reenter the room carrying handful of sand with him. Granted, the sand was dirtier than Sirius himself and slightly damp which would have usually made manipulation impossible, Hachibi had no chance of manipulating it because compared to him she was still testing out her abilities, but because the amount was so small he should be able to work it.

Sirius sat down cross legged just a few feet away from Gaara and Hachibi before turning his hand over and dropping the sand in between them, dusting his hands of to get rid of any leftover sand stuck to them.

Another wave of surprise hit the two sand users as they felt the familiar presence of their chakra mixed in with the sand. He knew as soon as he saw it, that was their sand, which made it all the easier to move. Gaara outstretched his hand over the sand, palm faced down, and immediately it started to rise off the ground and crumble and reform in midair, getting rid of the dirt and grass and any leftover clumps of stuck together sand. Soon it was dry and pure like normal and waving around, though greatly reduced in quantity. He then moved himself out of the way so Hachibi could show off some, she swirled it around and made it into the shape of a small stuffed animal, which took on the color and texture of her favorite stuffed animal before she grabbed it out of the air and hugged it.

Sirius was astounded by this: normal wandless magic was different from this. Usually a powerful wizard could perform the basics of spells without a wand and even they were greatly weakened, but this boy seemed to have performed a floating charm on sand, which was difficult in itself, not only without a wand but also without saying a spell, which was unheard of. And the little girl had used a floating charm and a transfiguration charm of some sort, using the same method as the boy, creating a small stuffed bear with sand coloured fur and blue markings all over it. All of this was unheard of.

" That's amazing!" Sirius bellowed, " I've never seen a wiza- I mean, anyone do anything like this. You could probably get into Hogwarts, even though you're under and over the age of first years!"

'Hogwarts?' Gaara had given his sister a small smile before picking the quill up again. It was the only sand they had at this point and they couldn't even defend themselves against a trainee with it… well, they probably could but they wouldn't take their chances against anyone worth fighting.

" It's a school for young witches and wizards, and I think you two would qualify." Sirius said, " I could ask an old friend to get you in if you want."

Gaara was surprised by this proposition but shook his head signalling a clear 'no'. He wrote on the wall, ' We have to get back to our people.' As soon as he wrote this, Sirius seemed to deflate a little, inside and out, his previous childlike excitement from the idea of being involved in Hogwarts was gone.

Dejected Sirius replied, " Okay." before moving to the window to stare outside, obviously disappointed, but that didn't change Gaara's decision in the slightest.

Gaara moved the quill too the moldy green wall and wrote, ' What are wizards, muggles, and wands?'

What followed was a lengthy; and mostly one sided explanation of magic, the wizarding world and the war with 'He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named' that still barely scratched the surface of the vast and apparently complicated world they were in and by the end of it, Hachibi was in a corner playing with various dolls made out of sand and the silent elder ninja was sick and tired of magic and earth.

After the conversation Gaara washed his and Hachibi's writing off the walls, too keep what they had said a secret. They were still first and foremost ninjas who needed to cover their tracks.

The next day Gaara and Hachibi went into Hogsmeade village to get food, though 'get' might have been the wrong word, 'steal' seemed more appropriate. As the tanuki hosts reached the town, they both were relieved to be among other people after so long in that one room, which wasn't to say that they didn't like Sirius, in fact, Hachibi downright adored 'Dog' as she had been calling him, mostly because of the uncanny reason that he almost always smelled like a wet dog. He had been very kind to them and despite their despised nickname, Gaara had no problem with the man, well… except maybe the smell. It was one of the things the man had neglected to explain.

It was refreshing for them, to be able to walk through a village and not be watched like a monster and not be recognized at all. They did get one or two bewildered looks for the tattered and strange clothes they wore as well as their universally strange appearances, the red spiky hair, black rimmed scary pupiless eyes and the prominent scars on their foreheads.

After they had entered the main high street of Hogsmeade, Gaara sought out the nearest back alley and he and Hachibi crouched down behind a rubbish bin. When he was sure they were hidden Hachibi gave him her stuffed animal.

When it was free, he opened his palm and let it float just above his palm before it dispersed into a cloud of granules, moving freely like a miniature sandstorm in his hand. Almost immediately after, the cloud snaked down to the ground before forming into a loose gaseous drill shape and burrowing in between the cobblestone floor of the alley and out of sight. Most of the sand left outside of the shrieking shack was unusable, the only reason they could use the small amount was precisely because of its small quantity. He had thus decided to create a new gourd for the both of them out of the rocks in this world. From the small amounts he'd been able to break down outside of the shrieking shack, this world's minerals took in their chakra just as well as the ones in their world. Gaara needed to come to the local village to survey what other types of stone were in the area, as Hachibi didn't get the whole minerals thing and that he didn't trust Black with his little sister; the rocks around where they were currently living were all far too hard to break down with the meager amount of sand at their disposal so he had little choice but to take Hachibi and look elsewhere.

As it would be several hours before he would have enough sand to fill their gourd, which he would also have to make out of more sand, so Gaara took Hachibi's hand and left the back alley and went back towards the relatively busy high street. There he found a bench situated outside a shop and sat down with Hachibi next to him in order to concentrate more on controlling the sand that was now grinding its way around underground. Fortunately, for such highly trained shinobi, meditation for a few hours was child's play. Unfortunately for the ex-insomniacs, they hadn't quite mastered the practices of sleeping and waking up. As such, when he sat down with one arm around Hachibi and closed his eyes to 'meditate' for an hour or two, Hachibi doing the same, he didn't expect to wake up twelve hours later, in the dark with a dog nudging his leg incessantly.

Gaara quickly surveyed his surroundings upon awakening, like he'd been trained, and soon realised his folly. It was late, really late. All of the residents of the small village had since deserted the streets and it was rapidly cooling down outside, he could feel Hachibi shivering in her sleep.

Gaara looked down at Sirius, a.k.a. the dog, and ruffled the fur on the top of its head before chuckling silently at how it moved its head too the touch. The dog was large and smelly and had dark fur; ironically the redhead could only think how similar it was to Sirius.

Gaara picked up the sleeping Hachibi and walked away from the apparently stray dog and back into the back alley that he and his little sister had visited earlier that day when he decided he's given the poor mongrel enough attention. He had no more time to spare, seeing as how he'd said they'd be back in an hour or two and it had since been half a day. Their private nurse maid would surely be hysterical by this point.

When he was back in the darkened corner of the inner village, he stood straight this time whilst he looked around to see nobody except the smelly black dog that sat patiently off to the side. Deciding to ignore the non-sentient being, Gaara shifted Hachibi until he could move one of his hands freely and raised his arm until it was fully outstretched in front of him and parallel with the ground before splaying his fingers and, carefully, without dropping Hachibi, bringing his other hand to just a few inches away from his chin before making a fist and pointing two fingers upwards in a one handed ram hand seal. Soon, the ground started to rumble lightly, making Sirius-dog whine uncertainly.

Not long after, a stream of sand started to fall upwards out of the hole that he himself had drilled into the cobbled street. The flow continued until the ball of sand floating before him was roughly the twice the size of a beach ball, turning slowly above Gaara's outstretched arm.

Gaara looked at the ball of sand intently before closing hand, forcing his and Hachibi's chakra into the shell of the sand whilst watching it transform into it's nostalgic gourd shape, complete with the red markings and cork made of sand. The sand gourd floated around to Gaara's back before being tied on. He felt elated to have the familiar feeling of the giant sand container affixed to his back, and he knew Hachibi would want her stuffed animal to be the sand she could carry around. He would create it when they got back to the shrieking shack.

Sirius had gotten worried when his wards hadn't come back after several hours, so he had changed into dog form to find them. He had looked everywhere that the mute twosome could've been hiding until he finally got a chance to look around the usually busier parts of Hogsmeade when most of the wizards and squibs had cleared out.

He had found the sleeping duo on one of the numerous benches that littered the busy wizarding village.

Earlier that day, many of the regulars to Hogsmeade village had heard rumors and seen the mysterious red haired racoon children asleep on a public bench. At one point, a half giant from a local school had attempted to get close to the children to wake them up out of concern, but when he got within five feet, the boy let out a blood chilling growl and squeezed the smaller girl next to him closer without waking up, things that could well have been a snore and a shift for the usually silent and still sleeper. From that point on, no one attempted to rouse the beast containers, until a large black dog came walking along at night.

With his trusted gourd now back where it belonged, Gaara strode into the high street again and strode around until he found the local bakery, which luckily still had a few loaves out on the display in front. Gaara didn't particularly like the idea of stealing, but he didn't have any money, nor did he know what currency these 'wizards' used. Sirius had explained the more generalized information regarding the world they were in but there were still massive amounts they didn't know.

As Gaara stood by the bakery's front door, the cork of the guard turned to sand before a small amount floated into the lock of the old styled wooden door; soon an audible click was heard signaling access to the bakery was now possible. Gaara didn't enter the bakery himself, he merely had a tendril of sand swoop in and pick up a pair of loaves before closing the door and relocking it.

The elder redhead wrapped up the bread, and silently and motionlessly commanded the sand too fly out of the gourd and in front of them. He piled up the sand until it was a foot thick and two feet wide, plenty of room to stand on. Gaara looked down at the old mangy dog that had followed him with a look of awe on its face unlike any dog that had come before it, before floating off on the platform.

The mangy dog wasn't too happy about this latest turn of events. As quickly as his doggy legs would take him, the escaped convict sprinted back to the shrieking shack. Fortunately, after the lengthy run, he discovered he in fact had arrived first.

That night they quietly sat and ate the bread without Sirius even attempting to start another conversation or rant. He had been shocked by the Suna-nins' control over the sand, without a wand or any magical artefact. But Sirius was a man with his own secrets, and he wasn't going to pressure his new friends over this.

The next day, for Gaara and Hachibi, was started by a rather rude awakening by a nervous and sickly looking brunette clumsily disturbing their slumber. Gaara had been woken by the banging that presumably came from the shoes of whoever was approaching, he looked over to see that it had woken Hachibi too. Gaara waited, safe in the knowledge that he could kill whoever it was before they could scream for help, if they meant any harm to himself, Hachibi, or their friend, Sirius. However, when the man burst into the room he seemed more startled by the presence of two extra people, aside from Sirius, than Gaara and Hachibi had been when the man entered the room so brashly.

Remus Lupin had been the one to help Sirius get to the shrieking shack, being one of the few people who knew the real reason it made the terrible sounds on the nights of the full moon. Then he had left, a few weeks ago, to deal with some problems that had arisen with his application for the Defence Against the Dark Arts post. When he had arrived back at Hogwarts to drop off his books and most of his other worldly professions, he had not been given the chance to visit his oldest living friend until the entire teaching staff had been told to go around the surrounding area to warn the villagers that there would be a sweep by the dementors. To that day Lupin didn't know how much Dumbledore had known about his involvement with Sirius' escape, but it was a great opportunity nonetheless to go and warn his friend.

" Padfoot, who're they?" Lupin exclaimed as he looked down at the strange children who were looking directly back at him with terrifying eyes. Well, the boy was, the girl just looked at him with innocent curiosity painted across her face.

As Sirius groggily sat up, resting back on one elbow, he said, " Their names are Lily, they're so much alike that they know which one I'm talking to so I call them by the same name." he quickly corrected himself as he saw the terrifying glares that were now being directed towards him. " At least, that's what I call them, the boy's real name is Gaara and the girl's is Hachibi."

" Gaara? Hachibi?"

" I still think Lily suits them better; you see it too, don't you? The resemblance…" Sirius remarked whilst hoisting himself up to a standing position.

Lupin was about to laugh at his friend's antics but was too afraid of the boy that was now sitting cross legged under the blankets with the girl sitting on his lap, both glaring intently at the man with the beard.

" I meant, where did they come from?"

" Gaara and Hachibi here, are ninja from another country." Sirius said before continuing after he saw the blank look on his friend's face, " They were badly injured, so I thought I would take care of them until they were back to full health."

" Are they, umm… muggle?" Lupin all but whispered the last part, as if it were a curse, though in actuality it was more like he didn't want too say a wizarding term in front of a suspected muggle.

" Well, no and yes." said Black, with a slightly confused look on his face, much like the one of Lupin's own face, " They can use magic, but they've never been schooled in wizardry."

" Excuse my friend here," Lupin had turned to the now calm looking children," Sirius here has the best intentions but, why don't you tell me a little about yourselves."

After ignoring the taken aback look from the man behind him had displayed at the casual insult, Remus waited for the answer that didn't come until Sirius exclaimed, " Oh! Right! I forgot to mention, they can't talk."

" Do you think it would've been a good idea too tell me that first, Sirius." Lupin sighed as he apologized to the annoyed mutes.

" So, to what do we owe the pleasure of this visit, Moony?" Sirius swiftly changed the subject.

" Well I was going to tell you that there's going to be a sweep of the area by dementors soon, and the teachers were told to go and warn anyone not on the run but I thought it might be good if I gave you a heads up anyway." Lupin said, shortly before turning on his heel and walking too the broken old door of the bedroom they were currently in."I suggest you turn into Padfoot and make yourself scarce as well as mister Gaara and miss Hachibi here before those monsters are upon you."

" Thank you old friend. I'll see you again soon, I hope."

" Maybe. It was nice meeting you, Gaara, Hachibi." and with those few words, the short visit was over.

" Will you two be okay without me for a few hours?"

*Nod*

" Okay, good. Just go and wait in Hogsmeade for a while until the all clear is sounded and then make your way back here." he said as he too turned toward the pale green door, " and if you feel a chill or hear that a dementor is near, run. They are evil monsters that will suck the soul out of you."

*Nod*

" I'll see you later; I'll talk to you two when I get back."

Soon Gaara and Hachibi were left in the old room all on their own, and didn't waste anymore time before Hachibi grabbed her stuffed animal, named Taki, and Gaara strapped their gourd onto his back, strapping his forehead protector around his neck to hide his most prominent visible scar, Hachibi doing the same, picking up Hachibi and walking out of the house.

The streets of Hogsmeade were barren with no more than two or three wizards quickly scuttling around with terrified looks set upon their faces.

' Oh, how nostalgic,' Gaara bitterly thought to Hachibi, 'just like home; all we need now is-'

" Monster!" Both were surprised when it actually did happen.

About twenty feet down the street, stood a man backing away from a floating black hooded… monster.

' At least they weren't talking about us.' thought Hachibi to her big brother, the same thought passed through the older shinobi's mind briefly before he started to walk forwards, towards the disturbance. They couldn't just sit back and watch someone get their soul sucked out; plus, Gaara wanted to use his powers properly for the first time since their arrival in this strange world. Stretch his proverbial legs.

As soon as the redheads had come within ten feet of the wraith like creature, it seemed too spasm into activity and completely ignored the man who was now running for his life, or rather, his soul.

The dementor seemed to swim through the air towards the tanuki hosts, who had since either removed the cork from the gourd or turned the tail of a stuffed animal into sand and were readying themselves for the dementor's attack. It came close to them, and that was when they felt its terrible effects, except they didn't seem all that terrible to them, in fact, they barely noticed the drop in temperature.

The only other effect Gaara felt was that he began to relieve every bad word said to him and Hachibi and every one of his murders and rampages, and he could tell Hachibi was remembering too, but neither Gaara nor Hachibi were ashamed that they had never forgotten those travesties. They may have been reliving them more vividly than even their most daunting nightmares, but they weren't bothered by the recollection. They were children with a sad past, one of the saddest pasts in either of the two worlds, so the dementors were predictably drawn to them but they would never forget the bad things that had happened and the bad things they had caused. Like someone had once taught them, they couldn't be distracted by dwelling on the horrors of the past, just move forwards and protect those who were precious to them.

In other words, they were depressed even without the help of dementors.

The dementor was so close to them, only now could they really appreciate the size of the reaper, all eight feet of it. Hachibi shrank away from it and buried her head in his chest. Just as one of its discusting, deformed and decomposing arms slid towards Hachibi's neck with every intention of choking her half to death before sucking the soul out of her then moving on to Gaara, just as the fingers were within grabbing distance of her hitai-ate, a wall of sand seemed to appear out of nowhere next to the prison guard before it slammed into it with such force that it was sent into the wall of a shop over thirty feet away. Unfortunately, for Gaara and Hachibi, because of the almost liquid form of the thing, it was still able to fly away after the savage it had just received without so much as a stumble or twitch.

Shaking off the persistent chill, the Jinjurikis walked away, Gaara hoping he would get another chance to get some battle practice before they had to return to the shack, and Hachibi hoping she would get a chance to kill some of the things now that she knew what it was.

It was about an hour later, an hour of boredom and aimless wandering without seeing a single human or dementor in all of that time, when they spotted another human being. The man was relatively tall, was wearing all black robes and had shoulder length hair, which was greasier than… anyone or anything they could think of. The man had a nasty sneer on his face as he strode through the village with his hands crossed across his chest, which made both Gaara and Hachibi internally chuckle at how similar it was to the former's fighting pose. The similarities seemed to end there as the man approached Gaara, who was holding Hachibi still, and looked straight down his nose at the shorter, odd looking boy with a just as odd girl in his arms, the girl had her arms crossed and the boy did too, which he immediately disliked.

" Boy!" he spoke demanding respect, " What are you doing out here? Or are you too stupid to understand that dementors are patrolling the area for mass murderer Sirius Black? And with a five year old no less." each syllable of the sarcastic and rhetorical question was pronounced clearly and concisely making it all the more annoying. Gaara really wished he could speak because there were a few choice words he would say to the man, most of which would have earned him a lengthy lecture from Temari.

" Who are you two anyway? I would have remembered instructing someone like you." he questioned Gaara and his sister, giving a curious and almost disgusted look towards their tattered and foreign clothes. " You couldn't be a student at Hogwarts, even Hogwarts wouldn't let someone as dirty and uncouth as you enter. Now tell me who you and the girl are and what that ridiculous thing on your back is." he said, fully expecting the small boy or at least the girl in his arms to break down and tell him everything he wanted to know, but no changes could be seen except that a contemptuous glare had formed on the boy's face, and the girl had uncrossed her arms and hid her face in a strange stuffed animal she had in her arms. " By the looks of your hair I might hazard a guess at a Weasley. Now, answer me!" Snape was getting angry at this point. Just the defiant look upon the strange boy's face was enough to ignite rage in him that was further fueled by the boy's continuing silence and the way not even the girl would say anything.

Without so much as an explanatory gesture, Gaara gave the man a quick once over before turning and walking away.

This, of course, enraged Snape sufficiently for him to draw his wand at the boy, hoping to scare the wretched mongrel, but no sooner had his hand come out of his pocket then the ground had begun to frost over lightly.

Snape immediately regretted being there. As a relatively powerful wizard, Snape could defeat around five dementors with ease, but swooping down on them were around twenty and they seemed intent on the young scarred boy and girl, the former of which had stopped walking and placed the girl on the ground, who in turn ran about twenty feet away from her apparent brother before stopping, around five dementors having followed her, he also noticed she still had the odd stuffed animal in her hands. Both had an almost unnoticeable smirk on their faces, confirming Snape's suspicion of madness.

'Don't they know what's happening?!' Snape screamed in his head as he backed away, hoping another one of the professors would chance by them and help, otherwise the boy and girl were going to be kissed by dementors. He might have been able to fight off the dementors present, but by the time he had scared them off, he would have been at the mercy of anything else deemed fit to do him harm, including other dementors searching the area or even Sirius Black.

Fifteen of them swam around Gaara, the other five around Hachibi, and for a moment, it looked as if neither of them were there, only two piles of swirling black cloaks were visible, but then something strange, even for wizards, happened. Out of nowhere, two identical sets of dozens of sand coloured spikes burst from the two spheres of dementors, killing many of them. The rest continued circling around the balls of sand, each covered in large spikes that had impaled the billowing monsters only moments before.

Snape was at a loss for words. No magic he had ever heard of could do this. His short lived musings were interrupted once again by the transformation of sets the spikes on the balls of sand into pointed tentacles that easily outnumbered the rest of the prison guards. They soon finished off the last of the remaining monsters, receding into the balls of sand afterwards, before those too dissolved into either the gourd on the older redhead's back, or the stuffed animal the girl was carrying. Severus hadn't even noticed his mouth had been left agape until the girl ran up to the boy and grabbed his hand as they started to walk away again.

The potions master was unsure whether it would be wise to take the boy and girl back to the castle, but as he watched the redheads walk away from him, he didn't have time to think things through more fully. He ran towards the duo and was about to grab the boy's shoulder so he could drag both of the children back to the castle, however, when his hand was within a few inches of the boy's body a shield of sand stopped it from progressing any farther.

" Boy! Come with me! And bring the girl!" he commanded, trying once again with the other shoulder, only to, once again, be stopped by the protective layer of sand that had hindered him before.

After the second attempt of grabbing him had failed, Gaara started to walk faster, Hachibi as well, away from the strange man who had, at first, seemed repulsed by the very sight of them and inclined to insult them, but now seemed intent on getting them to go with him. It was only when Sabaku no Gaara noticed that the man was still following them, that he relented. He couldn't risk leading the irritating man, apparently a teacher, to Sirius and the shack.

Gaara turned on his heel, Hachibi doing the same, and looked the man of grease in the eye.

Severus was shocked by this fortunate turn of events, though not for long as he spoke soon after, "Follow me, and quickly."

The shinobis did consider using the body flicker technique to escape or attack the man and run, but from what Gaara had heard about magic from the escapee, who was undoubtedly still skulking around in the woods still, the hook nosed magician would probably be able to use some sort of spell to track them. In any case, he realised their best bet would be to follow the taller man to wherever he needed to follow him to and sneak away later. In the worst case scenario they could simply use their sand and perform a little burial. It's hard for a corpse to track people.

Snape had turned around when the boy had signaled that him and the little girl would follow, and started to walk back to Hogwarts. Whatever these children had done was remarkable and he guessed it was due to the stuffed animal in the girl's arms and the strange item on the boy's back. No doubt that they were both some sort of dark magical artefact. They could be quite useful to them in the future.

The trek was quite difficult for the pale potions expert, as opposed to the trained ninjas who took longer strolls to wake themselves up in the morning. By the time they had both reached the castle, the sky was just beginning to dim.

Snape then had to think of how to get the senior professors attention without owling them or going to each of their offices one by one. It was times like this that he wished he could use the dark mark, that would get their attentions quickly enough.

What irritated the man more than the thought of them having to traipse the entire castle was the sight of professor Dumbledore standing outside of the entrance, flanked by Lupin, McGonagall and Argus Filch; how Albus had known the boy, the girl, and him were coming irked him greatly. The resident caretaker seemed decidedly disgruntled to be there, through his unhappiness was closely rivaled by Snape himself who wanted nothing more than a quiet year teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts, but he had been passed over for the job once again.

" Good evening Severus." Albus said quietly as he welcomed the three into the castle.

Gaara wasn't quite sure what to say, he couldn't have said it even if he knew, but nonetheless he wouldn't have known what to say anyways. Hachibi was just as speechless. They had followed the grossly unfit man to the expensive castle that was bigger than the Kazekage mansion and the Daimyo's palace combined. None of this awe, however minor, showed on the mutes' faces as they approached the opened doors of the enormous castle.

" Headmaster," Snape greeted back in his usual annoyed way before stepping to the side so that the strange twosome following him could walk to the front and the others could deal with them. " I was searching the village for Black, and warning everyone of the dementors, when I saw these children-" he said, giving the scary duo a quick glance, " kill over twenty dementors, without wands."

At that statement, most gasped and even Dumbledore lowered his gaze so he could look at the two. What really scared the old man were their eyes. No matter the feat that Severus had reported the children to have done; those eyes told so many more chilling and unknowable stories that for the first time in over a decade, he was actually afraid of something, or somethings. None of this showed on his face of course, but it sent chills up and down Albus' spine.

" What're your names, young ones?" he said, managing to avoid concentrating on the eyes of the children.

" They won't speak." said Snape with pure malice dripping off his voice.

" Can you speak?" Albus asked slowly and caringly.

Gaara calmly shook his head, Hachibi as well, confirming the man's suspicions. Gaara reached back and pulled the cork out of his gourd of sand, Hachibi letting the tail of her stuffed animal turn to sand, both instantly made Severus draw his wand. He had seen the destructive force of these children's weapon and he wasn't about to risk letting a massacre happen right in front of him.

The sand slowly crept out of the gourd, slowly because he knew they were scaring the man now identified as 'Severus', and didn't want them to get cursed with what he could only assume was one of the wands that he had been told about by Sirius.

Both sets of sand were hovering in the air now in wavy patterns until it started to form into more discernible shapes, the shapes of letters.

The letters spelt out, 'Hello, my name is Gaara.' and, 'Hi, I'm Hachibi.'

They had to admit, this way was much easier than writing on a wall, though he imagined it would appear a little more conspicuous.

" Hello Gaara, Hachibi, my name is professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," Dumbledore replied to the silent twosome's greeting, " Would I be correct in assuming you two are a wizard and a witch?" This time the sand the girl was controlling turned back into the tail of her stuffed animal and only the boy responded, talking for both of them apparently.

' No.'

" Oh," this shocked the aging man, " then are you squibs?"

Again, 'No.'

" Relatives of a witch or wizard?" Albus Dumbledore was seriously unsure of what else the children could have been. Maybe humanoid magical creatures? It would explain the eyes and raccoon look.

'No.' The sand had deformed and reformed each time the same answer was given to erase any chance of confusion, but the elder man still looked more confused than a Suna villager told that Gaara and Hachibi weren't going to kill them.

' We've never been trained in magic.' Gaara formed in front of himself.

" Hmm… well it's getting cold out here; why don't we retire inside and have something warm to eat and have a little chat?" Albus motioned inside, whilst the other teachers started to wander back into the castle now that the matter had been resolved for now, until only one was left. That one was Remus Lupin.

The ill looking man walked up to them as they proceeded inside the impressive castle and whispered directly, " Don't worry, I'll tell our mutual friend what's happening."

The redheads were glad regarding this reassurance. As much as they loathed their nickname, Sirius had been good to them and they did consider him something at least resembling a friend. They still weren't all too sure about the friendship thing.

Eventually Gaara's thoughts were interrupted when they arrived at a dead end in the corridor. Gaara surveyed his and Hachibi's surroundings and saw nothing of great interest. The only thing that was different from any other hallway was the large gryphon statue set into the wall.

With a quizzical look towards the man in front of them, Gaara continued to study the statue that was the only item of interest in the hallway, except the ancient man but he was sure that they would have plenty of time to find about him later on.

" Jelly Bean." the man said out of the blue, making Gaara question his sanity, but fortunately for the headmaster of the school he was not as senile as he seemed by any means as the gargoyle began to turn, magically, making a large grinding noise of stone against stone.

" Please, follow me." the old man said as he stepped towards the hole where the statue had once stood, now replaced by the stone staircase that had spiralled upwards after the gryphon statue.

The three ascended up the narrow staircase until they reached a door that was immediately opened and passed through. Into the office Gaara and Hachibi followed, the former of whom couldn't help but feel a slight envy at the size and magnitude of the room compared to the bleak looking Kazekage's office.

Dumbledore had moved to the chair on the far side of the grand desk before motioning for the redheads to sit down also.

As they did, Gaara couldn't help but notice the magnificent bird sitting on a pedestal several feet from the desk. And Hachibi lifted a hand and pointed to it before turning to the man with a questioning look on her face. The red and orange bird looked to be made of nothing but flames and grace. He was dragged from his thoughts by the only person able to talk in the room.

" His name is Fawkes. He's a phoenix." the wise old man stated, he too gazed at the intelligent bird.

" Now, onto more prudent matters. Mister Gaara, Miss Hachibi, as I understand things, both of you cannot speak and can use magic but have never been taught, is that correct?"

*Nod*

" May I ask, where are your parents?"

Gaara thought about this question, for more than one reason. Firstly, he had to think of whether to reveal that they were technically orphans, and secondly, he had to think of an appropriate gesture to signal that they were dead after telling the truth, in part. He didn't want them to have to use sand in order to communicate every little message.

Gaara raised his hand and clenched his fist whilst his thumb was pointing upwards, then slowly slid his thumb across his throat.

Dumbledore seemed to understand, as he said, " I'm sorry to hear that, as, by the looks of your clothes, you don't have anywhere else to stay. Would you like to join Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?"

Gaara quickly shook his head. He didn't know where, or in what world they were in, but they didn't have time to be in school. Additionally, there was Sirius, who could use all the friends he could get.

" Are you sure I can't change your mind? This school is an enjoyable place to learn and a good base for whatever else you plan to do in life…"

At this Gaara paused; this man knew more than he was letting on and it was a little unnerving. He thought for a while before nodding his head slowly and thoughtfully. If they attended this strange school, they could help Sirius find his godson and possibly find a way home.

" Ah, splendid, I'll have professor McGonagall sort out your paperwork. Term starts on the first of September so I'll arrange for one of the teachers to escort you to Diagon Alley, the best place to purchase school supplies, and find a foster home to take care of your sister whi-" Dumbledore didn't get to finish his sentence because the next moment he was encased in sand from his feet to his neck. He then was face to face with an extremely angry Gaara, who pointed to some words in front of him. They read.

' I will not allow you to separate me from my sister. I will not join Hogwarts if she does not take the term with me. I don't care if she is too young, where we're from she is a prodigy and passed our school system by the age of three.' The aging old man was surprised at this outburst, he had thought nothing could faze the boy. But apparently, anything that was anything to do with his little sister caused a reaction.

" I see. I will bend the rules just this once as I can see you are very protective of her. She may join you."

The sand slowly crept down his body and back into its container from whence it came. Dumbledore gave an almost inaudible sigh of relief.

' Now that that is sorted out…'

" Until you both go and get your supplies tomorrow, you'll be staying in one of the houses of Hogwarts." Dumbledore pressed the tip of his wand firmly on the desk and spoke clearly, " Advoco Snape"

" Oh, do you two want to go home and collect your things?"

The Jinjurikis shook their heads, wondering idly if they'd forgotten anything in the shack; not that they could risk going back there anytime soon anyway.

Several minutes later the door opened to reveal a clearly annoyed Snape.

" You called for me, headmaster?"

" Yes Severus, please show young Gaara and Hachibi here to the Slytherin chambers. They will be attending Hogwarts this year. Now that I think about it, how old are you Gaara?"

Gaara held up his hands and flashed his splayed hand once each signalling ten plus three fingers.

" Perfect, you will be a third year, and since your sister is so smart, I'll make her a third year as well."

Snape, not bothering with any pleasantries, led his unlucky finds to the cellars of the castle before muttering the password quietly and proceeded inside, not bothering to wait for his charges.

The room inside the hole of the wall in the grimey cellar was much more lavish than one would have expected, but Gaara didn't show anything on his face as he continued walking after the gloomy potions master.

They arrived at a dark oak door at the end of one of the twin hallways that they had walked down. Snape inspected the nameplate on the door before he opened it to reveal several royal looking black wood beds with green and silver sheets, matching the various other curtains and tapestries as well as cupboards and wardrobes. All in all, the place looked quite livable but for the coldness, but Gaara and Hachibi were used to sleeping in cold conditions. Quite a few windows got broken in their house.

" Goodnight." Snape said scathingly before closing the door and storming back to his own quarters to brood over the ridiculous treatment of his time by the headmaster as well as the fact that unsorted, uneducated and possibly unhinged children had been admitted to the noble and sacred area of slytherin.

The said unhinged children were tired enough that they didn't even consider exploring the castle, thus they decided to undress and climb into the surprisingly warm and comfortable bed. Gaara set his gourd down next to the bed as Hachibi climbed in with Taki, both just in case someone decided that they would be vulnerable in their sleep and attacked them. Usually the minor trek and earlier excursion they had been on wouldn't have even fazed them but after several weeks of inactivity, they seemed to have lost some muscle mass despite their small efforts.

The sand nins went to sleep with one thought that quite often occurred to them, how good it feels to be able to sleep.

Gaara wasn't a sound sleeper, probably because of the many years he had gone without sleep, possibly the stark ninja training he had endured as a child, or possibly the multiple attempts against his and Hachibi's lives. But for whatever the cause, Gaara was now awake. He could hear someone trying to be stealthy and sneak up on them but obviously had not undergone training. The heavy footed man, judging by the volume of the footfalls, had entered the room and was slowly making his way towards the left side of their bed. Gaara didn't even bother opening his eyes. It didn't matter who they were, the sand would protect him and his little sister without fail.

The man walked up to within a meter of the bed and with the fluttering of a cloak and the quiet sound of " Stupify." was spoken. As soon as the red light had started out of the wand, the cork of the gourd popped of and the entire bed Gaara and Hachibi were lying in was encased in a shield of sand at least an inch or two thick.

Soon enough the intruder left understanding that any other attempts would be futile.

Gaara recalled his portion of the sand back into its storing place before wrapping his arms around Hachibi and going back to sleep.

Gaara woke in the morning without prompting and rose to a sitting position on the king sized bed before gently rousing Hachibi.

The perpetually tired two didn't take long to exit the warmth of the bed and make their ways out of the room to look for the closest showers. Luckily it appeared that after every few bedroom doors there was a clearly marked bathroom door. It seemed as if the communal showers were each for the different year groups, if the plaques on the doors were to be believed.

After a quick shower, Gaara and Hachibi dried off and redressed in their clothes before either strapping their gourd to his back, or picking up a sand colored stuffed animal, and walking towards the exit of the dormitories that led back to the dingy dungeons. Gaara was silently thankful that they didn't have to speak the password to exit it again, otherwise they would have had to wait for that bat impersonator to let them out, and he didn't like their chances living by the mercies of the clearly scornful man.

They kept walking until they came upon the stairs that led back up to the main body of the castle. By the trip it took to get up, Gaara guessed that the bowels of the school that they had stayed in for the night were quite far underground, and from the decay on the roof, his keen ninja prowess told him that the entire house had been situated under the lake…his keen ninja prowess and that the windows had showed darkened water in the morning. But mostly the prowess thing.

They finally came to a part of the vast castle he recognized, which wasn't overly helpful because it might have just looked familiar. All of the hallways looked more or less the same to the foreign children.

Gaara was hoping they could make it out of the castle to see Sirius again, to tell him that they would be staying at the school for the time being. Unfortunately, they couldn't find the exit, nor could they find the headmaster's office. They only found one of the corridors lined with paintings, suits of armor and the occasional wooden door.

By the time they had been insulted by the fiftieth or so moving painting, Gaara was beginning to get angry. They were really lost.

Tired of aimlessly wandering, he trudged up to the nearest door with Hachibi following opening it to reveal… a broom closet. Sighing, he moved on to the next one along and opened it to reveal a classroom with many ancient looking desks and benches. At the end of the room there was a set of stair leading to an office at the back.

Gaara walked forwards with Hachibi, hoping that the room beyond might hold someone capable of steering them towards the exit.

They walked up the small set of steps and Gaara knocked on the door lightly. The answer came in the form of a soft voice calling through the door.

" Come in." in an almost curious manner, justifiable by the fact that the only people supposed to be in Hogwarts that week were a few teachers and support staff, and none of which were usually up that early or had any business with him.

The older redhead opened the door a crack and practically stumbled into the cluttered office along with his little sister to find a very tired looking man sitting behind a small desk littered with papers, trying desperately to finish all of his work before the first of September, unbeknownst to most, for two reasons.

Lupin looked up from his desk and smiled wearily at the apparently forever angry and curious looking children standing in the doorway one with a giant gourd on his back and the other with a strange stuffed animal in her arms and the abnormal garbs with the bandannas covering their necks.

" Good morning Lily, how may I help you?" Lupin couldn't resist joining in on his friend's joke, plus the look on the redheads' faces was more amusing than an upside down Severus.

Gaara reached out behind himself to remove the cork from his storage device, debating whether to answer him or give him a desert funeral. He chose the former as the sand floated out and formed the words,

'Need to see Sirius.' before it dissolved and reformed as, 'Tell him what's happening.' both tanuki hosts were seriously glad they could use their sand like this; it would have been hell writing everything out all the time.

" I'm afraid you can't go see him at the moment, you two," Remus said with a sigh at the look of confusion on the youngers' faces. " I've been asked to escort you to Diagon Alley to buy your supplies for the school year. Then you'll be staying in an inn on the alley until you come back here," he explained, " by that time the rest of the dementors will be guarding the grounds of Hogwarts and it will be impossible to sneak out to the shack, especially for a student like you two."

' We need to tell him about what has happened.'

' How about this; before we go and buy your supplies, I'll go and meet with Sirius and tell him. I'll say I'm picking up some ingredients for a potion." Lupin smiled at his own inventiveness and the look of relief that was present on the boy's and girl's faces despite their efforts to remain stoic.

' Ok,' Gaara was about to call his sand back when a couple of thoughts crossed his mind, whether they were his or Hachibi's he always had trouble discerning. 'Food?'

"'Food'?" Lupin questioned the mute teen, " Oh! Breakfast! You two are hungry." he exclaimed realizing that the children probably hadn't eaten anything since the morning before, and from what he remembered, Sirius was never a great cook. " Just go out the door, turn left and walk to the end of the hallway, turn right and then walk until you reach the stairs. Go down two floors and then walk to the third hallway on your left and that should lead you guys to the Great Hall where you can get some food." It made Lupin internally laugh when he realised how complicated the directions were. He had been in the school for so long that he instinctively knew his way around better than he did his own home.

Gaara replied with a curt nod as he set off with Hachibi. Luckily for them, he had a great memory, being a ninja and all, so finding the Great Hall shouldn't be too difficult. Hopefully.

As the sand shinobi were about to walk out the office door, Gaara turned back and let his sand change into words that made Lupin laugh uproariously.

' Call us Lily again and I'll make you eat all of the sand in this gourd.'

Neither Gaara nor Hachibi dawdled on their way to the 'Great Hall', being too hungry to take time to glare at the rude paintings. That being said, when they arrived Gaara did take a moment to admire the splendor of the hall. He had to admit, the name fit.

Inside of the expansive room were several long dining tables that ran side by side, and a slightly shorter one that ran horizontally at the other end of the hall. The roof, the little that could be seen, showed many elaborate cross beams that were, for the most part, hidden by what looked like the sky. It was, for lack of a better term, enchanting. On the walls on either side of them, Gaara looked at the banners that were hung from the ceiling to a few meters above the floor, that displayed what he guessed were symbols that represented the four houses of Hogwarts.

The other people in the hall looked almost surprised to see them enter. There was an aging stern looking woman with with green robes and a stereotypical witch hat, who he recognized from the night before; a giant, messy looking man with a black bushy beard and hair that seemed to encompass most of his face, who seemed to recognize him from somewhere; finally in the center of the table, in the fanciest chair, sat the headmaster of the school. Unlike the other two, Dumbledore seemed to awaken from his surprise first, as he gestured for the smallish teen and his kin to come towards them.

Gaara came forwards with Hachibi until they were standing only a few meters in front of the dark table.

" Good morning Gaara, Hachibi." Dumbledore chimed as he looked at the boy and girl before him with his ever calculating blue eyes.

Gaara nodded in return, not bothering to use his sand in reply.

" These are the children I was telling you about earlier, Minerva." Albus said to the stern woman, "Gaara, Hachibi, this is the deputy headmistress and professor of Transfiguration, Professor McGonagall." gesturing to his right, and to his left, " This is Rubeus Hagrid, keeper of keys and grounds at Hogwarts, and, starting this year, will be teaching Care of Magical Creatures." The large man smiled warmly at them.

" I imagine you both must be hungry." the elderly wizard commented, as he raised his hands and clapped them together, causing a variety of breakfast foods to appear on the nearest table, close to the front.

Gaara eventually happily sat down with Hachibi and ate the delicious food, being cautious when he and Hachibi first tried pumpkin juice to check for poisons. Although the food was good, so very good compared to the 'food' Sirius prepared for them, it couldn't hold a candle to their sister, Temari's cooking, in Sunagakure.

The entire meal was eaten in silence, after which the sickly Professor Lupin walked in through the back entrance to the hall with a nervous smile upon his face and sweat on his brow. Gaara assumed he'd gone as quickly as he could to explain their situation to Sirius and had, just as quickly, rushed back again.

After Gaara had waited for the man to finish his breakfast along with Hachibi, he was asked to follow him to the headmaster's office along with the current owner of the office.

When they had stepped into the office, the two professors had walked to the unlit fireplace and looked expectantly at Gaara and Hachibi. Gaara in turn, walked towards them apprehensively with Hachibi, prompting an explanation from Lupin.

" Today we'll be traveling by floo. I assume you haven't used floo before." he said, " All you need to do is pick up some of the floo powder in the pot and clearly say-" that was when Lupin stopped dead in his tracks, realising that both the boy and the girl lacked the ability to speak, thus couldn't use floo powder.

" Oh; headmaster,Gaara and Hachibi here can't speak, so what should we do? They can't just write the address," Lupin said, hoping for a quicker solution than taking the Hogwarts express to London.

" Don't worry Remus; just walk to the outskirts of the grounds and apparate all three of you straight to London, but be careful of the dementors."

" Thank you, headmaster."

After a few parting words between the professor and headmaster, the trio exited the office and walked to the Slytherin dormitory area, where Gaara and Hachibi deposited their sand after much coercion and reassurance from the teacher. The next stop was a grassy clearing quite a ways away from the castle; where, upon arrival, Lupin took a hold of the jinchuurikis' shoulders. Gaara didn't know what to expect, of what 'apparating' was, but nothing anyone could have said could have quite prepared him and Hachibi for the disagreeable sensation of traveling by apparition. It was by no way even close to as bad as the technique that had brought them to that world, but it still wasn't pleasant. The feeling of being pulled in every direction whilst simultaneously being squeezed in all of the same directions. Needless to say Gaara barely landed on his feet.

" Very impressive, most don't land so elegantly after their first time." Lupin chuckled as he led the slightly peeved two into a grotty pub called 'The Leaky Cauldron'. Inside of the dingy bar were a multitude of robed men and women that the teen immediately identified as wizards and witches by their attire and the sensation they emitted, like chakra but more focused and controlled, though unknowingly it would appear.

The pale teacher didn't stop for pleasantries as he walked straight through the crowded pub, not earning so much as a second glance, which was more than could be said for the red haired, scarred, ninja garb wearing, scowling and curious, scary children following him. Gaara was well versed in the art of judging masses, as was Hachibi, but it was refreshing to be judged for what they looked like and not what they had inside of them.

Just outside the black door was a narrow area with a tall, red brick wall that seemed to be about the most interesting thing there.

Remus removed his wand from his robes and tapped one of the bricks, causing them to make a grinding noise. Gaara wasn't expecting a large gateway to form as the bricks moved and turned out, revealing a bustling high street that put Hogsmeade to shame in most ways.

" Please, follow me and stick close. Can't have you or your sister getting lost here can we? I heard there's a mass murderer on the loose." the scarred man laughed as he proceeded onwards into the crowd. Every few moments he would look back to check if his charges were still following him. Diagon Alley always got really busy the last few days before the start of the school term. It just so happened that that day was the busiest day of the year. Luck shines on us all.

Lupin waded through the crowd until he came to an obscure marble building, covered in pillars that seemed to bulge outwards in the middle from the weight of the roof. The inside of the bank was quieter than the outside but it didn't make it any less interesting for Gaara as they first saw the strange creatures walking across the floor with scowls almost as prominent as Gaara's own. The pink skinned, pointy eared, squat creatures all wore a kind of surreal banker's uniform.

Remus, after waiting in line with Gaara and Hachibi, led him towards the towering desk manned by one of the odd midgets. Lupin, like any learned wizard, usually would have warned the boy and girl of the Goblin's vicious temperaments but as the chance of the boy or girl saying something insulting was fairly low, he didn't bother. He just wanted to get the money and leave as soon as possible.

They removed some funds from one of Hogwarts' many vaults with a signed letter from Dumbledore to pay for Gaara and Hachibi's various expenses. By the look of the sack of gold removed, Gaara surmised that it wasn't going to be cheap.

The first stop on their tour of Diagon Alley was Madame Malkin's Robes for All Occasions, which, as the name suggested, was where the ninjas were going to purchase their new clothes. If he was honest, Gaara didn't really want to give up his normal attire, and by his thoughts he surmised that Hachibi didn't want to either, but they had been told by Lupin that the uniform was absolutely mandatory and if they didn't wear it, they couldn't attend the school.

They both entered into the shop but Lupin hung back by the entrance and let Gaara and Hachibi get along with it, knowing the cold boy wouldn't appreciate someone looking over his or his sister's shoulders or holding their hands.

Gaara walked through the cluttered shop with Hachibi tailing behind whilst he tried to gain a worker's attention. It wasn't easy as they seemed preoccupied with cutting the various fabrics and clothes around the store or walking into the back of the shop for whatever reason.

Eventually, due to his attempts at waving and tapping gently on the desks, one of the older workers looked around and saw them standing there. It was then he realized the fault in his plan, the fact that neither of them could talk. It seemed he had underestimated how troublesome the 'mute' thing would be. As she looked and waited for Gaara to ask her something, the woman started to look annoyed, judging by the glower forming on her face.

" Yes? What do you want?" she was getting steadily more annoyed by Gaara's and Hachibi's impudent silence, " Look, if you're just going to waste-"

" I'm very sorry, my young friends here can't speak," Lupin interjected, feeling terribly guilty that he had forgotten to help the disabled children, " They're both here to purchase a full set of third year robes."

" I'm so sorry, I didn't know!" the woman flustered whilst trying to change the subject, " The girl too? Hogwarts?"

"Yes, please. And the girl is a bit of a prodigy."

" Please step this way," she gestured to behind a curtain that led to the back of the store, presumably where they would do the measuring and/or fittings. Gaara was right, by the looks of the podiums standing in the middle of the room and the few workers who buzzed around, one or two of them attending to the boy currently standing on one of the podiums. He looked more unhappy to be there than him and Hachibi combined. Every few moments he would snap at one of the workers for the most miniscule infraction or mistake. Gaara couldn't help but agree, he hated clothes shopping as well. Hachibi at least could tolerate it because she was a girl.

The woman moved over to two other podiums and gestured for Gaara and Hachibi to step onto them so their measurements could be taken. The mutes weren't to thrilled but neither Gaara nor Hachibi made much of a fuss. When they were at the proper height the woman walked over to one of the various tables and picked up two measuring tapes. She moved in front of Gaara and dropped the end of one of the measuring devices so that it was fully stretched out before she removed her wand and flicked it at the tape. Soon after, the instrument flew in the air and began to slither and wave like a snake, before it started to measure the peeved teen. The woman then did the same thing with the said peeved teen's little sister.

As the tape measures worked and the woman walked around the store searching for the materials needed, Gaara looked over to the other only current customer besides them. The moody teen was about his height, a little taller, with slicked back platinum blonde hair, that's right, you know him, you love to hate him, the one, the only… Draco Malfoy.

The upper class teen looked over to the even stranger redheads and was duty bound to introduce himself, in case they were someone important or their children.

" Hello, my name is Draco Malfoy. And you two are?"

Gaara now understood the key difference between him, Hachibi, and the other; they weren't brats… anymore.

Malfoy continued to look over at the others expectantly, waiting for a reply, hoping for someone with powerful connections and not another mudblood, half blood or blood traitor. Soon after the question was posed, Draco was becoming agitated by the others' silence.

" I asked what your name was," he said, trying his best not to shout or lose his composure.

Gaara and Hachibi looked just as annoyed as him but didn't shout or even talk they just reached up to the strange bandanna thing around their necks to reveal two twin large, recently healed scars around their throats.

" Oh, I apologize," said Draco graciously, for him, " Are you both from a pure blooded family?" he needed to know whether it was even worth his time talking to someone who was as worthless as a mudblood or a blood traitor like Weasley, and by the looks of their clothes, he might not be far off the mark. The girl turned her head to her comrade.

Gaara had to think a little about the question. Pureblood? Could he be referring to their class? In which case they would definitely be pure blooded, coming from a long line of prominent shinobi and a Kage for a father. After he had taken his time thinking about his non-verbal answer he nodded his head slowly.

If Draco was honest with himself he would have never guessed the other teenager and his suspected sister's status but was glad nonetheless. The look on the older stranger's face was scarier than his father's had ever been, and it looked like it could get much worse so the chances were good that he wouldn't be as annoying as some of the supposed purebloods he knew.

" You're all done, Mr. Malfoy. You can go now; we'll send your robes to your address. Thank you again." the seamstress said as she helped him down from the podium and went to one of the tables and started writing notes of some description.

" Well, I guess I'll see you later," Malfoy said before exiting the shop, completely ignoring Lupin who was more than happy to continue to wait and daydream.

" What house are you dears?' the woman, who had since returned and removed the measuring tapes, asked. Gaara shrugged. The woman wrote something down in her notebook before asking, " Is there any particular type of robes you two want or do you want a full set?" as she went back to her little notepad she then seemed to remember something before raising her head again, " I'm so sorry!" she seemed flustered, " Do you both need a full set?" Gaara nodded, thankful she realised that they were limited to yes or no question, " Okay. I have all of your measurements, come back in about-" at this, the woman looked over at a clock in the corner of the room, " four hours."

Gaara once again nodded before he helped Hachibi down and walked towards the door, then waited for Remus to realise that they were about to leave without the man dreaming idly of steak. It wasn't too long before Lupin finished his inner musings and stood up, "Thank you very much, we'll come back at four."

" Shall we continue?" he asked rhetorically as they walked on, into the crowds with Gaara and Hachibi walking beside him. Instead of the comfortable silence Gaara had enjoyed before, Lupin kept making a one sided conversation about his past. He kept talking about his group of friends, the 'marauders', and how one of them got married to a girl named Lily, for which they got their despised nickname. How only one had a son and he had become famous for killing a dark wizard, a boy named Harry who Sirius had been trying to meet with. Over the course of the walk, Lupin had even revealed his and his friend's nicknames. From what Sirius had told Lupin, he could definitely trust Gaara and it felt so great to relive and retell some of the adventures him and his friends had in their youth. By the time they had reached their next destination, Gaara wished he could reply to some of the tales that had been woven along the way, his reply would be ' Shut up!'

They visited Pottage's Cauldrons before they stopped off at Slug & Jiggers Apothecary for Gaara and Hachibi's potion supplies. What made the leg of the journey that was school shopping unbearable was the smell in the potions supplies shop. It was comparable to rotting eggs and some other mystery smells that made both Gaara and Hachibi wish they had eaten a bigger breakfast to throw up in order to make the point that the shop was unbearably bad smelling more clear. Luckily for Gaara and Hachibi, it seemed as if Lupin was having an even more difficult time in the shop as he quickly zoomed around the smelly store before purchasing the correct ingredients and zooming back out. Gaara and Hachibi were happy enough to zoom out along with him.

The next stop was a book shop by the name of Flourish & Blotts, which had been a slightly more enjoyable trip as the shopkeeper's assistant had looked close to tears when Lupin had read out the last book on the list, 'The Monster Book of Monsters'.

The stop that both Gaara and Lupin had been anticipating the most was upon them as Gaara and Hachibi looked up at the sign above the door saying, 'Ollivanders: Makers of fine wands since 382 bc'. They stepped into the empty shop; the only things in there were the endless boxes that seemed to be part of the walls. Before either had time to inspect the boxes closely, and old man peered from behind the counter and said,

" Remus Lupin, it has been some time since I last saw you here. And…" at this the old white haired man seemed to become confused, " I'm sorry, may I ask what you names are?"

Lupin also looked confused. It was a well known and universally accepted fact that Ollivander always knew people's names and never forgot any wand he made or sold, but the fact that the boy and girl in front of him had the man stumped was odd.

" Their names are Lil-Gaara and Hachibi." Remus managed to catch himself before he called them their hated name again, however funny their reactions were.

" If you would, please raise your wand arms." it didn't take a genius to figure out he meant their dominant arms, so they did and for the second time that day a tape measure took their measurements without anyone holding it. The old man known as Ollivander went into the back of the shop and came out carrying two small purple boxes. He pulled away the measuring tapes and opened the boxes and presented the wands inside to the redheads. The redheads each took a long slender stick and gave them a wave. Absolutely nothing happened. The old man took the wands back with a frown on his face before going back into the many stacks of wand boxes and came back with six or seven more boxes. Both Gaara and Hachibi tried each of the wands inside of the boxes and the same happened each time, not a thing.

" Lupin, are you sure these children aren't squibs?" the perplexed shop owner asked.

" Quite sure."

With a "Hmm," he went back and brought a massive range of different colored boxes, most of which were different shapes and or sizes. Gaara and Hachibi tried each of the wands they were presented with, not sure what to expect, if anything.

" Very strange, it's exceedingly rare that I encounter such difficult young magic users." the old man was honestly stumped.

" Really? I could have sworn I tried twice as many wands before I got the right one." Lupin said, remembering the number of broken chairs and singed eyebrows.

" Very true, I specifically remember a number of destroyed chairs that day," the man seemed to be reminiscing, " but in almost every wand you tried, you got a reaction, even if it was a little adverse. With young mister Gaara and young miss Hachibi here, there hasn't been a single reaction."

Ollivander sighed and walked back into the piles and came back with with as many wands as he could carry, not long after Gaara and Hachibi gave each of the sicks a wave before more were presented to them.

" I just don't know what to say, I'm afraid. The only thing I could suggest if for Mister Gaara and Miss Hachibi to come into the back and try and find one themselves. The wand chooses the wizard, so with any luck they might be able to find the ones that have chosen them, and if not… well, if not then they'll have to look somewhere else for a wand because I don't know what else to suggest." Ollivander sighed as he sat down on the chair in the corner of the room and gestured for Gaara and Hachibi to go ahead and look around.

The racoon monster hosts walked past the duty counter and among the endless boxes. They each tried to guess, taking down a few random boxes, but still nothing worked. An idea then popped into the two ninjas' heads. They closed their eyes and tried, using their chakra, to search for anything that would correspond. But sadly even this did nothing to aid in their search.

Gaara and Hachibi walked to the very farthest wall of wand boxes in the back of the store and started to remove them without any real aim in mind. They dug through them until they reached the last layer of boxes before the stone wall, that seemed to be made of old and rotting wood instead of the cardboard the newer ones were made of. Gaara reached in and picked out one of those ancient boxes, Hachibi as well. They didn't open them immediately, instead they walked back to the front of the shop to find both the adults in silence and obviously interested to see how it would turn out. They weren't going to spend the next week trying each of these wooden sticks for some magical effect, so if these wands didn't produce some sort of result, they would have to try elsewhere, or else question those who said they were magical.

Gaara and Hachibi walked into the customer section of the shop and laid the old boxes on the counter before carefully opening the fragile lids. Inside both were two almost identical simple black wands, with the exception of one being shorter than the other. The boy and girl picked up the wands and the first thing they noticed was the compatibility they felt. The shape of the wands seemed perfect for their hands. They each gave their wand a flick like they had been told to before, and to the two adult's surprise, this time something happened. When the wands had been flicked a sudden burst of wind flew through the wand shop like a hurricane, throwing everything into disarray.

After the old man had righted himself and managed to order his thoughts he said, " Well, that was a powerful reaction, and to _those_ wands no less." he walked around to the back of the counter picked up his own wand. He then started to use his wand to make the hundreds of boxes and papers fly back into place all around him and the others.

" What is so special about those wands." the ever sickly looking professor asked as he also righted his tie and jacket.

" I have no idea. I honestly don't know what's in those wands. The wands in the back of the shop were made a long time before me. Though, from the looks of where you Gaara and Hachibi found those particular wands, it looks like they could be from one of the earlier generations of my family's collections. Back when they first settled in this area. Although it might just be some from a few hundred years ago that got mixed in with the ancient ones. The boxes do tend to get thrown around from time to time." he said as he continued the massive clean up.

" How much will that be then?" Lupin said as he reached into the bag ready to pay for the apparently antique wands.

Ollivander raised his hand to steady Lupin, " Please, these ones will be on the house. I have never sold one of the wands from the back of the store, let alone two. To be able to have sold some of those wands is a rare treat indeed, so I'll let you have them for free."

Neither Gaara nor Hachibi had been listening to the conversation that was going on, as they were affixed to the twin black wands in their hands. The way it seemed to fit perfectly to the contours of their hand and the way both their chakra and the chakra supplied by Shukaku was absorbed by both sticks of wood was almost as comforting as their sand containers.

" Thank you very much." Lupin said as he walked towards the door. Gaara and Hachibi bowed in respect to the strange man before taking each other's' hand and exiting the shop with the wands that had been put in one of their pockets. On the way to the next shop Lupin continued his endless talk about his past and friends, but for some reason he seemed to leave a few key facts out. Like the reason he was discriminated against and why they were called Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs.

The rest of the shopping expedition went without incident, for the most part, after which they picked up Gaara and Hachibi's robes. When they arrived back at the Leaky Cauldron, Sabaku no Gaara was more than happy that he didn't have to go school shopping again for a very long time. And Hachibi? Well, Hachibi was fast asleep in her brother's arms, tired out from the shopping trip.

" Remus! Could I interest you in a drink?" Tom the bartender and landlord asked while pouring another customer a pint.

Lupin seemed to consider the offer before looking down at the bags in his hands and then at Gaara with the sleeping Hachibi before turning back to the barman and politely refusing the offer and asking for a room for a few days. The key was given to Lupin before it was passed on to Gaara. Lupin then took Gaara off to one side and said quietly, " I'm going to leave you two here for a few days while I finish preparations for this year. I'll also talk to Padfoot for you until you get the chance to see him. I'll come back on the first of September and ride the Hogwarts express with you and your little sister."

With a curt nod from Gaara, Lupin departed out of the door and left Gaara to take the sleeping Hachibi and all their luggage up to their room. He wouldn't have let any regular students on their own in a pub for the better part of a week, he was too responsible for that sort of behaviour, but Gaara was far from normal and Lupin was sure Hachibi did whatever her brother told her to, he was sure Gaara was perfectly capable of taking care of himself and his sister for a few days.

After Gaara had dumped all of their baggage onto the floor, he decided to wake up Hachibi and start reading some of the easier books they had been given with her. He was going to wait to let Hachibi or himself read the Monster Book of Monsters; it had given the shop owner enough trouble to dissuade him from trying to open it without help, or at least without their sand.

The rest of the day was spent reading, until Gaara and Hachibi were feeling hungry, at which point Gaara decided to go down and get some dinner with Hachibi. Fortunately, Lupin had the foresight to ask for meals included with the room; otherwise they might have had to go without eating for the week. They had done it before and it wasn't fun. Like the time Temari had gone on a solo mission and Kankuro was left to cook.

Downstairs was irritably noisier than their room, Gaara decided, as they entered the crowded eating area. The black eye rimmed children walked up to the bar and asked for something simple to eat. Tom said it would be done in a few minutes and just to wait by one of the tables. Easier said than done when the only space available was next to a very rowdy family of redheads laughing, shouting, and joking, making the teen shudder in disdain.

The redheads sat down on one of the benches and tried to relax, which wasn't an easy task when the girl next to them kept raving about a newspaper and some boy. It was unbearable. At least, Gaara thought, they didn't have to acknowledge them. That luxury didn't last long.

" Hello, I'm Ginny Weasley." the younger girl beside them had turned to face them and seemed to study them and their strange appearances.

A minute or so passed before the girl started to look unsure of herself and then another minute of Gaara looking back at her with his ever calm face and Hachibi paying absolutely no attention whatsoever before she blurted out, " S- sorry, I didn't mean to b-bother you." the emotional girl seemed close to tears by that point.

Before Gaara could do anything to calm the cry baby down a pair of similarly redheaded twins walked up to where Gaara, Hachibi and Ginny were sitting and leaned down with dark frowns on their faces.

" Oy! What-" one of the identical boys started aggressively.

"-did you say-" the second boy continued the sentence with just as much aggression in his tone.

" -to our little-"

" -sister?"

" You jerk." the first one finished the tirade.

Gaara realised that they couldn't always use sand or write down their words, so they would have to repeat this one gesture very often. He motioned to Hachibi before they both raised a hand to their necks, covered still by their forehead protectors, and pulled down the neckwear slightly to reveal the twin visible scars that stretched across their throats.

" Oh,"

" Oh,"

" Oh," the three said before they apologized sheepishly to the mute boy and girl. The elder of the said mutes had hoped that when that episode was over, he could go back to thinking quietly but it seemed the event had drawn the attention of the others at the table. They all appeared to be of the same family and there were quite a few of them. Now that he looked closely, he noticed that at least one person wasn't of the same clan, by the looks of the brown, bushy haired girl.

" Ginny, Fred, George, stop bothering the poor boy, can't you see he has a sister to look after," the woman, who Gaara assumed was their mother, scolded.

" I'm sorry dear," she said as she smiled at him and his little sister from her seat on the opposite side of the table. Quickly, Gaara waved off any worries she might have had and then turned back and started to stare into the blank space in front of him. At that point, he was trying to think of any possible clues he had seen or heard to help them get home but as of yet he hadn't thought of any that could be of use.

Gaara's thoughts were interrupted when their dinner arrived, which he ate without any thought, making sure Hachibi minded her manners. It was good, but he just wanted to get back to reading. He could tell Hachibi wanted to as well. It was a good distraction from the world.

After they had finished the meal, they deposited their plates on the counter like they had been told to and walked back upstairs, dodging a rat and the evil looking cat chasing after it. When they arrived upstairs they could already hear the yelling of a boy and the reply, equally if not louder than an initial shout from a girl, not the one he had been talking to, or, to put it correctly, the one who had been talking to him.

The rest of the night continued much the same as the day had, them reading through books they had been given and wishing that they had brought some sand with them. They had managed to get a few hours of sleep that first night before resuming their reading the second day. They became so engrossed in it that they skipped breakfast and lunch without realising it.

When they finally emerged from their room and went to eat, he spotted the family of redheads, plus the brown haired girl, sitting at the largest table, except this time there was also a black haired boy wearing glasses sitting next to the brown haired girl and the youngest looking red headed male.

Gaara and Hachibi tried to skirt around the table in order to avoid the noisy irritants, no matter how well meaning they may have been. Both Gaara and Hachibi had been trying to become warmer and kinder people since their fateful encounter with the blonde Hokage wannabe in their world but they had already made a friend in Sirius and maybe even Lupin so Gaara didn't see why they had to socialize with the loud people. Two friends was plenty.

As they were about to sit down at one of the smaller tables in the corner of the room, they were spotted by the mother who shouted over to them and asked them to join them for dinner. He tried for a weak smile and a polite silent refusal but she wouldn't have it and insisted for them to sit with her family.

He immediately regretted not disappearing when they were assaulted by the woman's questions about their eating habits and how skinny they looked, but then who would help Hachibi out of it. He suffered through it for ten minutes before she moved on to the even skinnier black haired boy sitting directly across from him.

" Mum, who're 'ey?" the young ginger haired boy asked with a little food still left in his mouth.

" Ronald, don't speak with your mouth full!" she scolded, she seemed to do that a lot.

" So, what're your names? I'm Ron Weasley." he said after swallowing his food and offering his hand out to Gaara to shake. He reluctantly did so, but did not verbally reply. Fortunately, before a repeat of yesterday happened the bushy brown haired girl spoke up.

" They can't speak Ron. We met them yesterday remember?" she pointed out. He had indeed been there but he had apparently been too engrossed in his conversation to notice the slight altercation that had occurred.

Whilst he silently ate his food, Gaara couldn't help but notice the glasses wearing boy across from them. Something seemed to claw at his memory, other than Shukaku, something important that he should remember. They couldn't have met the boy before so why did he seem to ring a bell? His head snapped up in realisation. The glasses, the black hair, the slightly nerdy look and the almost hidden scar on the forehead. Sirius and Lupin had told them about Sirius' godson, and their good friend James' son, Harry Potter, called the boy who lived.

That night Gaara's thoughts were drawn back to Sirius again; worry was at the forefront, closely followed by curiosity regarding the convicts' recent activities, and the smallest was the constant loathing for the nickname that he had created for Gaara and Hachibi. The last thing he needed was people patronizing them. It was almost as bad as Temari's behaviour towards them, doting on them and hugging them all the time. It somehow made him reminisce fondly about their serial killer days when even she wouldn't hug them or pat them on the head and laugh at how short and cute her baby brother and sister were. It was a simpler time.

The next day was August the thirty-first and the last day they would spend in the Leaky Cauldron. It went much the same as the days that had passed before, except at about six in the evening, there came a tapping, as if someone was gently rapping, rapping at their chamber door, the elder redhead stood and opened the door, hoping beyond hope that it wasn't one of the Weasley party, or a raven. The Weasleys were nice enough, just kind of annoying in their informal and rambunctious ways. To his relief, there stood Remus Lupin, looking much the same as Gaara and Hachibi had last seen him, if a little paler and more sickly.

" Good morning Lily." he greeted cheerfully, walking into the room, currently littered with open books and other items strewn out across the floor. Gaara and Hachibi weren't very tidy little ninja. " It's a bit messy in here," he stated, trying his best not to look into the mute children's eyes for fear of their death glare.

" I thought I would stay here for tonight and then we'd go to the train station early tomorrow." he smiled. " So, have you two been reading all of this time?" Lupin asked as he looked over some of the books scattered about the room.

Gaara nodded as he sat back down and pulled Hachibi back onto his lap before picking up the book they had previously been reading, something called 'History of Hogwarts', or something like that, neither of them cared about the title.

That night, the trio went down to eat later than usual, as Lupin had been filling in the tanuki children in on Sirius' activities. Which had included and were pretty much limited to: eating, hunting, running, sleeping and the one oddity was his trip to see Harry, Sirius' godson, which had ultimately been unsuccessful as he had only gotten a glimpse of the boy before he was taken by the Knight Bus to where they were now. As they went down later, they managed to avoid the loud people that would have undoubtedly been eating down there earlier.

That night, Gaara and Hachibi had been kicked out of their shared bed and had to sleep on the floor. They didn't complain, they couldn't, but they wouldn't have, as they could see how sick the man was, but they still pouted as they turned restlessly on the hard wooden floor. Fortunately they were used to worse but still, they pouted.

In the morning, the sleepy man was awoken by a shake of his shoulder and opened his eyes to see the blazing red of one of his best friends' wife's hair; still not fully awake he said,

" Morning Lily, where's James?" it was just a few seconds later that his eyes fully focused and he saw the incredibly peeved teen and its sister standing above him. It was an unsettling sight. " Sorry, thought you were someone else." he laughed nervously as he sat up and started getting ready for the long day ahead and the even longer night it promised.

Little did Lupin know, Gaara and Hachibi also hated full moons, as it was the night when Shukaku was strongest. They were able to fend off the demon and keep control of their minds these days but it still promised to be a long night.

After breakfast they left the Leaky Cauldron, Gaara carrying his and Hachibi's shared school trunk and other school supplies. They took a taxi to King's Cross Station. The station was packed as always and Gaara even noticed some more obvious wizards walking around, trying to get on the train earlier so they could get a seat. Gaara really saw no reason to get there earlier so there was no chance of missing the train, but he had always had trouble understanding civilians.

They walked to one of the barriers, dividing the platforms nine and ten. Lupin bent down and whispered into the children's ears, to avoid someone from overhearing,

" Follow me, and walk fast." As soon as he had finished speaking he walked briskly towards the barrier and without even blinking walked straight through it. No matter how much magic they saw, Gaara and Hachibi still weren't used to it. Ninjutsu seemed so much more sensical. Gaara also didn't flinch when he passed through the barrier, his sister as well, through the proverbial Looking-Glass, and onto the hidden Platform 9¾.

They secured and empty compartment on the train and sat opposite each other, the two sand siblings sitting together, next to the windows. Soon after sitting down Remus had fallen asleep, and Gaara and Hachibi weren't far away. They tried to stay awake by watching the influx of students walking by their window but soon they too pulled a blanket out of their shared trunk and over themselves and went into the peaceful realm of dreams.

Unbeknownst to them or professor Lupin, about half an hour after they started to slumber, three third year students entered into their compartment and sat down. They conversed quietly for a few hours under the onslaught of heavy winds and rain before the train came to an abrupt halt. The trio looked out the window to see only the darkness and the rain and the frost slowly covering their window.

Ghostly shadows drifted in the corridors of the train and one of them stopped by one of the compartment doors, sensing the delectable souls that lay within. It unlocked the door and reached around to grab it, sliding it out of the way. No matter what orders the dementor from Azkaban had been given, the feast within the compartment would be worth it. It floated into the cabin and reached out its hand towards, not Harry Potter, but the sleeping Sabaku no Gaara and Sabaku no Hachibi. It reached forwards and just as its hand reached the light covering the blanket provided…

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Astral- That's a wrap people! Hope you liked it!

Mirokai- REVIEW OR I WILL FIND YOU AND I WILL DESTROY YOU!

Gaara- Shut up why don't you.

Mirokai-Make me!

Astral- Guys, stop fighting. You're both older than me for heaven's sake. Try and get along. Anywho, next update coming soon!

The Soul Siblings- BYE!


	2. A New School

Astral- Hey everyone! Nice to see people reviewing, not! But I guess that's what we get for posting chapters practically back to back. Right, Gaara-nii?

Gaara- Yeah.

Mirokai- REVIEW!

Gaara- Be quiet for once. We do not own Harry Potter nor do we own Naruto, those rights go to Masashi Kishimoto and J.K. Rowling. And please review.

* * *

Just as the rotting black hand reached out to remove the covering of the humans with the twin souls more tempting than a hundred Azkaban inmates, the blanket was thrown to the side of the compartment revealing a very awake and predictably angry Sabaku no Gaara and his sister, each brandishing a kunai, the only weapons they had been able to smuggle with them to Diagon Alley. The dark metal blades glinted in the pale light left by the sun trying desperately to shine through the thick and dark storm clouds above. When the evil creature recovered from its shock, if that was what the behaviour could be described as, it started forwards again to take the massive soul within the containers in front of it. As the monster approached Gaara and Hachibi, even they felt the slightest effects as they were made to relieve even the most brutal of their killings when they were younger, but that did not stop them from throwing the kunai straight at where they assumed the creature's heart would have been. Unfortunately the daggers struck the folds of the black cloak as if it was empty and soon hit the ground making two quiet clanging sounds, all but ignored as Gaara backed away, shielding Hachibi behind him, not that it would help because if one got caught, the other is so closely connected that the same fate would befall both, having nothing left to defend themselves with that wouldn't also harm the others in the compartment. They didn't even have their sand armour on, because they had been reluctant to wear it to Diagon Alley as it might have been too heavy to transport with them while apparating, they still didn't know how the whole 'apparating' thing worked.

One of the mangled bony hands moved to Gaara's cheek and, almost tenderly, embraced it as the dementor leaned in to kiss the boy. As it opened its circular 'mouth' and started to suck the very soul out of the shinobi, Hachibi's whole body went limp and her expression changed from a scared one to absolutely blank, not a single emotion was conceived as her soul seemed to leak into her brother and get swallowed by the billowing monster, needless to say, Remus Lupin was shocked at how even their _souls_ were connected. All of a sudden Gaara could feel every ounce of his and Hachibi's chakra being consumed right from his mouth. Their very essence was being eaten. And that was when it got really interesting for the other passengers in the train compartment.

The chakra that had been absorbed by the creature was replaced so quickly by more and more chakra, which was getting progressively wilder and increasingly violent. It was as if the devil itself was fuelling the souls of the boy and girl being kissed by the dementor. The shadowy figure started to spasm as it continued taking in the boy and girl's soul until it was shaken off by its own wild movements. It looked, to all present, as if it had overloaded on the twin spirits of the redheaded mutes and was having a fit. But it didn't end with the jerking, as the creature started to dissolve into pitch black sand from the bottom up. The entire dementor was soon nothing more than a pile of black dust on the train compartment's floor. Hachibi's eyes almost immediately closed and she started to sink to the ground, before her brother caught the knocked out toddler.

Gaara understood exactly what had happened as he had felt everything, and was unaffected in the slightest, except for the feeling of worry that crept over him because of Hachibi, as he sat back down and checked the vital signs of his sister before he pulled the blanket over her and proceeded to stare out the window as he waited for her to wake up. He had felt the creature absorb their chakra, the essence of their almost identical souls, until, in a bid to protect his hosts, Shukaku had released its own chakra. This caused the monster to absorb too much of the demon's soul and subsequently died returning the absorbed chakra to its original owners. As his and his sister's chakra had been returned, hers returning through him, he was more or less unaffected by the ordeal and wanted nothing more than to relax and wait for his sister to regain consciousness, he wasn't very worried for Hachibi, this happened almost every time they connected their chakra networks, but that it had happened unwillingly unsettled him. But then, neither Gaara nor Hachibi would be worthwhile ninja if they hadn't been able to cope with something like that.

The rest of the cabin, on the other hand, was shocked, including Remus Lupin, who had woken up halfway through the encounter to see Gaara being kissed by a dementor and his sister's soul somehow getting sucked out through his, before the magical creature… disappeared. Before he could make any kind of comment or form a coherent question, the familiar presence was felt again by the doorway. An exact duplicate of the previous grimm creature floated in, but this time it flew straight towards Harry Potter who fainted not long after it took interest in him. At this, Lupin flew from his seat and shouted " Expecto Patronum!" and out of the end of his extended wand came a white mist that seemed to engulf the dementor. The grim reaper look alike flew out of the cabin faster than a kyuubi host towards ramen and wasn't seen again. A few minutes later the trains power seemed to spark back to life and the motionless train started again towards its destination.

The last couple hours of the train journey were spent reviving the unconscious Potter, seeing as Hachibi woke up perfectly fine after her and Gaara's dementor attack, and giving the red haired mystery two ( Gaara and Hachibi ) wary glances; and, although reluctantly for some, changing into the school's mandatory uniform. Gaara and Hachibi had only been persuaded to put it on when Lupin, who was on his way out of the compartment to check on the other students after the dementor inspection, said, in response to them both glaring at the uniforms they had pulled out of their bag, that if they didn't wear it they would be expelled before the term officially started, creating a new school record and stopping them from stopping them from researching any way home. The uniform itself was a big change from their normal attire. The constricting school trousers were bad enough, they would make running more difficult, but the shirt, tie and jumper were ridiculous. They were impractical in every physical sense. Gaara was just glad they would be able to wear their own clothes on the weekend. He hadn't asked or anything, he couldn't, but he didn't care, they wouldn't wear the hated school uniform on their days off. The clothes only saving grace was that the robes were an ideal place to hide weapons. Of course, he also strapped on his trusty leather band under his cloak which would soon carry both Hachibi's sand and his patented gourd again, Hachibi's as well because he didn't want people to tease her for carrying a stuffed animal around and she didn't care if he had it as long as they were close, which they always were. He'd like to see someone take it from him then.

When the train finally came to a halt it was still pouring outside and was probably going to start to get dark soon, though that was more or less irrelevant as the clouds covered any trace of the sun. Gaara and Hachibi were reluctant to exit the train with the rest of the student body as they looked at the water with disdain. They hated getting wet, and always had, for one reason or another. Eventually when all of the other people behind them became impatient and started to hurl insults at them, they walked out into the wet train station platform. All of the other students were walking towards the carriages, so the newcomers followed suit, ignoring all of the smaller children who were marching towards the lake. They walked with the crowd, Gaara scaring everyone out of their path with a stare colder than the icy rain falling all around them, until they reached the stage coaches.

As they walked up to the ancient looking black carriages, the first thing Gaara noticed, other then that they were ancient and black, were the creatures pulling them. They looked like horses that had mated with bats. They were the size and roughly the same shape as their equine counterparts, but looked deathly bony and thin, as if their bones were only covered by a thin layer of black skin and a pair of folded bat wings. Their eyes were one of the most haunting facets of their appearance as they were completely and deathly white, pale, much like the Byakugan of Konoha. One of the strangest things about the odd creatures was that none of the other students seemed to pay them any mind as they boarded the carriages. Gaara also tried to pay as little heed as possible, Hachibi as well, as they walked up to the last carriage and stepped in.

Inside the dry and warm carriage sat three people, all roughly Gaara's age and one of which they had met previously. The one he knew had identified himself as Draco Malfoy a few days prior. The carriages had two adjacent seats that could comfortably hold two or three people. Malfoy was sat on one side and the two large boys were sitting on the other. That was before Gaara and Hachibi stepped into the vehicle. As soon as their scarlet heads popped through the doorway both of the goons snapped to attention and looked as if they were about to start some sort of fight, but they were calmed by a wave of the platinum blonde's hand. Said blonde waved them to sit on his side of the carriage, much to Gaara's relief as he sat himself and Hachibi down opposite the trio. His relief came from the notion of having to sit between the two obese teen for what was sur to be a lengthy ride, if their luck was anything to go by or have to sit facing them whilst sitting next to the snob, an almost equally undesirable thought, and if he hated both the ideas, he knew his sister did too. Of course, if they had not moved, he would have moved them one way or another. His composure could only go so far, especially when it came to the girl at his side.

" We met in the robe shop, as I'm sure you'll remember," Draco started the conversation with his normal confident and superior smirk. A nod from Gaara confirmed his hope as the aristocrat continued to talk about how he was sure Gaara and Hachibi already knew there were certain types of people that deserved respect without earning it and certain people that didn't, the certain people that did deserve the respect apparently deserved it just because of their lineage. It was at times like these Gaara wished he could talk, because he would have verbally beaten the boy in front of him worse than the kunoichi Tsunade after her fellow Sannin Jiraiya for peeping on her, though this would be strictly verbal rather than a physical beating. Instead he had to settle for nodding occasionally to the seemingly rehearsed speech and ignoring him as much as he could while he tried to get Hachibi to stop fussing with her robes.

Eventually the time came when his input was required, " Don't you think we should just cast out all of the mudbloods from Hogwarts?" Draco asked as he fixed Gaara and Hachibi with what some might have described as an intense stare. What was returned would universally be described as a real intense stare. It scared all three of the non shinobi senseless, and then amidst the intimidation, Gaara slowly but surely shook his head meaning a resounding 'No'.

For the rest of the ride, the three Slytherins attempted to fight back with weak glares but it was nothing compared to the tried-&-tested glare of the elder demon container of Suna, Hachibi was still working on hers, but needles to say it was still better than anyone in this world's.

When they arrived at the school itself, the three Slytherins scuttled off before Gaara and Hachibi walked out, and followed the others through the main entrance and into the Great Hall. The dining hall was as grand as it had been the last time they were there, though his admiration of the dining room was diminished by the number of scrambling students running to their tables. It left Gaara wondering if they should just sit at the end of the table like last time, but quickly dismissed the thought as the area was abruptly flooded by children. Deciding to forgo the trouble of finding a seat he crossed his arms and moved to the back of the enormous room and leaned against the warm stone wall with Hachibi. They watched the continuing chaos for several minutes until they had all finally been seated and were engrossed in quieter conversations. Soon after the main pandemonium of returning to the school had ended for most of the students, a group made their way to the front from one of the four tables and arranged themselves to face the rest of the student body with one boy at the front supporting a sizable toad that made Gaara think back to the largest toad they had ever seen, then again, that toad had also had a pipe in his mouth and was about the same size as the castle he was currently standing in. The group in the front then started to sing, as a choir, a lively song to the others in the hall. Gaara didn't particularly care for the song, but he did pay attention, making Hachibi listen as well, to be polite to the singers and to drown out the mindless conversations wafting around the huge room that were even less appealing.

After the song had finished with a loud croak from the toad, the choir dispersed and walked to their seats, each at one of the four tables, revealing the teaching body seated at their table behind where the choir had been standing. The conversations resumed soon afterwards and Gaara could not help but overhear a few of them. One that he did overhear was Draco Malfoy mocking Harry Potter across the hall about fainting on the train. Gaara had a feeling that he could make the weasel like boy faint within a minute of trying, as they had been told when they were children, 'You never know until you try', but that was best saved for another day.

Around ten minutes later the teachers finished their own conversations with their usual stern looks on their faces, except for Hagrid, the groundskeeper, who looked as if he was having the best day of his life.

McGonagall walked out the back entrance to the hall carrying an old small wooden stool and and even older looking witch's hat. She sat the hat down on the stool just in front of the teacher's table and walked to the end of the hall and slipped out of the massive doors.

The conversations around the hall continued until she reentered, this time followed by nearly a hundred scared looking first years; Gaara assumed they were first years because their size and skittish behaviour. Once they had been led to the front Minerva broke off from the group and walked to the table where she was handed a scroll listing all the new students' names. She examined the scroll a little before waiting for something. That something was the hat spontaneously bursting into song, which shocked his little sister so much he could hear her screaming in her own and his head. The song was short and riddled with clues for some of the students to be wary, any other hidden meanings were lost to Gaara as he didn't understand most of the references the hat made. He was also startled to see a hat singing, and you already heard about Hachibi.

Singing hats… wizards.

When the song had ended Mcgonagall had taken the scroll out once again and started to read through the list. She called out the first student, sorted obviously by the alphabetical order of their surname, and the student walked to the rickety old stool and sat down on it whilst putting the sorting hat down on his head.

The hat seemed to shift as it was on his head before one of the creases seemed to darken and not long after the crease opened again, wide like a mouth, and screamed, " Ravenclaw!"

Each student standing at the front of the hall was told to move to the front and was then announced a certain house. They would then move to the corresponding table which would usually cheer or clap, except Slytherin which merely gave a few polite claps and then interrogated the new student about their blood purity, status and other such details.

After the last was called and sorted, Dumbledore rose to standing and made a few announcements, like new rules, reminders of old ones like not to enter the 'forbidden forest' and the two new staff members; Rubeus Hagrid and Remus Lupin, both of which they'd met before and had seemed friendly enough, though it was a mystery to Gaara why Lupin had abstained from the start of term feast. After a few more announcements along those lines he came to one of his final points.

" And finally I would like to add that there will be two new students joining our third years this year, siblings, if I might add, and one of them is a little prodigy," he said as he surveyed the room for the red haired 'monsters'. " The elder one will be sorted into a house, and his younger sibling will go to that same house, then both of them will be treated as regular students from this day forward." Dumble gestured to Minerva who had since ditched the scroll and shouted in her usual calling tone.

" Gaara and Hachibi!" the fact that the new students only had one name each sparked a lot of interest in the student body, along with the entire idea of two new third year students, it was unheard of. The rumors spread instantly as the two redheads walked to the front of the hall at a leisurely pace until they reached the stool in front. Along the way many people were surprised by their looks, along with the fact that one of them was a five year old. They had porcelain white skin, blood red hair, scars in a foreign language on their foreheads, the boy had a large, thick leather sash around his torso, they both had a metal plate tied around their necks with black material bandanas and finally their intensely scary eyes, ringed with black, that put anyone else's glare to shame easily.

Immediately the 'Gaara Fan Club' was formed among a few disturbed girls of Hogwarts.

Gaara sat down on the stool with Hachibi standing beside him like all those before him and placed the worn hat on his head. The hat sat on his head for a few minutes in which Gaara wondered if this was all that was supposed to happen when finally the hat said in norm albeit loud speaking tone, " I cannot see into this boy's mind…!"

The entirety of the great hall was taken aback by this admission by the hat that had seen into hundreds of wizards every year since the founding of the school many centuries ago.

Gaara wasn't overly surprised to hear this really, as both he and Hachibi had spent so many years keeping a demon out of their minds that their minds might have been one of the strongest in the world at repelling intruders, along with those of the other Jinchuriki.

Some of the staff were calling for Snape to use Legilimency on the elder of the new students. Gaara didn't know what 'Legilimency' was, but it sounded like some kind of spell, which Gaara wasn't willing to allow. Dumbledore mused over the idea before disregarding it and standing up, immediately silencing all of the chatter that had started.

" Would you please allow the sorting hat to examine your mind? It is necessary for you and your sister to be sorted into one of the four great houses of Hogwarts." He spoke loud enough for everyone to clearly hear but not so loud as to be shouting at Gaara and Hachibi who couldn't have been sitting no more than ten feet away from him.

Gaara closed his eyes and nodded his head clearly signifying his cooperation.

" Have no fear the sorting hat will not reveal any secrets it unearths within a mind it examines." the old man said, quieter than before so only the redheads could hear, as he sat back down on his throne eagerly anticipating the results. Truthfully Dumbledore would have relished the chance to examine the mysterious boy's or his sister's minds, more so with his discovery that he was rather adapt at Occlumency, but if the sorting hat had been unable to penetrate the teen's mind then he didn't have much of a chance at succeeding with either of them, seeing as the boy probably taught his sister how to block mind probing as well. Whoever these children were he was going to find out the old fashioned way, he had let Gaara and his sister into the school because he hoped they could protect Harry but from what his dutiful potions master had told him, these children were no pawns. He would have to keep a close eye on them. It was a gamble but if he was as good a judge of character as he thought he was then he wouldn't have to worry about Gaara and Hachibi, and if he wasn't then he would have to deal with them, but that was a last resort.

Gaara concentrated hard to open his mind enough to allow the probing head gear access to his mind, and Hachibi's as well, without inadvertently giving Shukaku an invitation to slaughter the countless children and adults around them. Even without sand, the one tailed demon could probably kill most of the fledgling wizards in the vast room.

" So, you've allowed me access into your mind." Gaara heard the echoing voice in his head.

Simply to test out his inner voice he said, " Hurry, we do not enjoy having others in our mind." Gaara was almost happy to hear his own voice, even if it was just in his own head.

" Patience, first I need to look through your entire mind, to see- oh? This is quite unusual, quite unusual indeed, I have, in all my years, never seen any two minds as closely connected as this, it is almost like you share the same mind, yet, they are different at the same time. Well, I need to check both your minds to see who you really are," the hat said as it probed deeper. Before either of them could stop its progress, Gaara felt it contact the other occupant in their minds, one of the spots where their was no distinction between whose mind it was. " Hmm? What's thi-"

The entire of the great hall heard and saw the sorting hat literally scream in what looked like pure agony, unheard of for a hat. The hat, sat on Gaara head, kept screaming until Professor Mcgonagall removed it. As soon as the sorting hat had been taken off of the blood red spikes it whispered, almost inaudibly, " Slytherin.." the boy obviously had many 'demons', figuratively speaking, and sending him and his sister to the house known for cruelty and hatred didn't seem sensible. But she was duty bound to report the tormented hat's decision despite her opinion and subsequent reluctance.

She sat the hat down in the darkened trophy room to rest before she re-emerged, walked to the front, and in her loudest voice, said, "The sorting hat has chosen Slytherin!"

Unlike all of the previous selections for the snake house, this one elicited a roaring cheer as Gaara stood up, slightly shakily as some might have noticed, and walked with his sister to the clapping table of snobs. He was thanking the gods that him and Hachibi had been able to force Shukaku back into his cage after the intruder had been forcibly removed. He could scarcely imagine what the hat had seen when it tried to enter the demon's mind, but he imagined that it would be quite a few months before it was back to normal.

As the sand tanuki hosts to their seats on one of the benches of the Slytherin table, Gaara heard Dumbledore announce one or two more things to ease the tension that had built in the previous five minutes, which wasn't overly effective as he announced the dementors presence for the foreseeable future and for the students to take caution due to the escaped mass murderer Sirius Black, before he signaled for everyone to start the feast that appeared when the headmaster clapped his hands.

As Dumbledore had been announcing, he was inwardly cursing himself for not foreseeing this turn of events. The boy was undeniably dangerous if left to his own devices and he had been pushed into the blue blooded Slytherin's domain. The only thing left was to see now was the two children's magical potential. If things did get out of hand he would have to use the elder wand to eliminate the threat, or threats, no matter how much he didn't want to hurt a child, but the prophecy came first if Harry was to save the muggle and wizarding world from Tom.

Gaara had tried to sit himself and Hachibi down near people of his own age group to spare themselves the endless and idiotic questions of the younger years and the matured snobbery of the older years. He hoped they had found a bearable medium. He had judged the ages simply by the weasel like platinum blonde boy they had met before. It pained him to think they would have to stay in the same dorm as the insufferable boy but he was the only one they knew and that knew they couldn't talk. He didn't want to have to make pulling down the forehead protectors to show the scars on their throats their new greeting.

" How did you do that to the old hat?" one asked.

" What're your second names?" came quickly from another.

" Did you hex the sorting hat?"

" Did you see the look on that old trollope's face when you made the mangy old hat scream?"

" Why are you transferring in?"

" Is your sister really a prodigy?"

" Who are both of you?"

All of these and countless other questions, most of which weren't as valid, flooded in as everyone started to eat. Another popular question was regarding his and his 'baby sister's' blood purity. Of course, neither Gaara nor Hachibi paid them neither heed nor attention, as they started to eat the delectable food around them. Some of the table seemed to be getting annoyed at being ignored and Gaara was readying himself for a table silencing glare. Fortunately he was saved the trouble of silencing the table when the boy he previously thought to be of no use, Draco Malfoy, spoke up on their behalf.

" Shut it!" he had all but shouted, just managing to avoid the teacher's' ears, " Stop making such an irritating noise. They can't speak, you simpletons." After that a few insincere apologies were sent in both their directions then the table sat there in relative silence to finish the good food, the only noise on the table coming from a few whispered conversations originating from the younger years and the braver older years. No one wanted to provoke Draco Malfoy, especially not if he was in league with the scarey new redhead serial killer look alike and the said serial killers little sister.

The rest of the feast progressed, including a second course and dessert, after which Gaara was happy enough to go to bed with Hachibi on a full stomach and enjoy one of the greatest luxuries, sleep. They were also going to be reunited with their precious sand, meaning they wouldn't feel as helpless as they did without it.

One of the older students led the way down to the lower levels of the school after the feast had ended and Dumbledore sent them to bed. They arrived at the entrance to the common room and the prefect told them the new password for the year: " Noble Salazar."

Gaara could foresee the need to verbally speak the password to their temporary home a potential problem. Then again, they were only at Hogwarts to find a way home and for shelter so a minor inconvenience was acceptable in the long insides of the underground dormitory were as grand as everything else he remembered about the ancient school. The rich black leather sofas, the eerie collections of human skulls, the big blazing fire set into the black marble fireplace, everything about the place screamed class and dignity, all of which both Gaara and Hachibi could live with. It seemed they could get used to living in the Slytherin house for the coming school year.

Gaara looked down and noticed that his little sister's head was drooping and she was practically falling asleep on her feet, so, being tired himself, he picked up his sleepy sister and walked straight back to the room they had stayed in before. When he arrived the door was closed and on the door were three name plaques which read 'Draco Malfoy', 'Gaara', and 'Hachibi'. Gaara was going to have to tell them their full name at some point, but not right now as he wanted to go to bed and get his sister in bed as soon as possible.

Gaara was about to open the door to their room when he heard an unwelcome voice from down the hall.

" Oy! Where do you think you're goin' with the brat?" Gaara saw it was one of the henchmen that Draco boy always kept with him. Not wanting to get into a meaningless fight, especially with his sleeping sister in his arms, Gaara simply pointed at the door, and more specifically their names on the door. Obviously the boy wasn't happy with the nonverbal answer as he called over the other lackey and they both advanced on him and the small toddler in his arms. When the two tall boys were upon him, he hoped Draco would intervene on their behalf. No sign of him.

" What do you think your doin'?" the other, slightly shorter slurred, as he tried to intimidate the older new student. " Just 'cus Draco thinks you're okay doesn't mean you and the twerp get to stay in our room," he continued. It was only after the next sentence that things escalated, "-you freaks." It wasn't much of an insult but it was enough. In the last few months both Gaara and Hachibi had become fairly balanced people, to the point that he wouldn't kill someone for such a stupid insult, but unfortunately for the two 'bullies', this was a special occasion. It was the first full moon Gaara and Hachibi had experienced in this world, and, although the main effects were prevented by the clouds covering the moon, Shukaku was still banging at his bars to be free or for blood to be spilt and the memory of his lonely and hated childhood and how Hachibi suffered because of him were brought to attention by the all too familiar taunt only aided in the one tailed demon's desire for carnage. For some unknown reason, the effects of the moon seemed to be so much stronger in this world, though Gaara didn't stop to think about the potency of the moon and it's future implications as he was all too soon on on a mindless rampage.

The redhead jumped into the air between Crabbe & Goyle and spun around to deal a harsh kick to the side of each of their faces causing them to spin around whilst falling to the ground, bleeding from the gashes on the sides of their heads. Gaara wasted no time as he landed in a crouch, gently setting Hachibi down, and diving onto the first boy and started to beat his face repeatedly, using his other hand to bring the podgy face back to where he wanted it so he could continue to bludgeon the boy with his trained fist. When the boy's sobbing had ceased and he had lost consciousness Gaara jumped up and walked over to the other boy who had started to crawl away with a look of absolute terror on his face. He didn't get more than ten feet down the lavishly decorated, empty, hallway as as he was blown from his hands and knees and onto his side by the foot that connected with his gut. Gaara picked up the single conscious boy by the collar of his shirt and jumper and flung him back to the other. He then let over to them and started to kick and punch the other's face and gut. He continued until both had been knocked out and were bleeding profusely. The look on the boys' faces were enough to tell what had happened, the look of sheer agony and terror. The agony was self explanatory but the terror, the terror was from Gaara's face. Throughout the entire brutal attack, the insanely wide smile never left his face.

After he was done, Gaara slumped against the wall and seemed to wake up from a daze he hadn't even noticed going into. Though it wasn't really a daze as he could remember every detail of what happened, everything he had done, he was just glad he hadn't woken up Hachibi, as she would have gone into one of her tantrums and killed them. Gaara pulled himself to his feet and picked up the still asleep toddler before walking to the door of their room and entering. The place was still empty exempt for their belongings and his precious gourd. He suddenly felt glad he hadn't had it with him at the time otherwise he would have undoubtedly killed those two kids.

It was only now, as he lay on the bed with his arms around Hachibi, that he was able to contemplate the situation. It worried him that he had lost control like that and accepted Shukaku's anger. But that wasn't it. He hadn't just accepted the beast's anger; he had taken in parts of its chakra and parts of the beast itself. He didn't know what he could do, when it was the full moon he might go back to their old ways of killing indiscriminately. He had to think of something to do to keep the monster away from others. Somewhere where others wouldn't go. Somewhere he could be sure they wouldn't be found by any students. But they didn't know the castle that well. And they only had a month to find somewhere before the next full moon.

Luckily he didn't seem to be feeling anymore of the effects for now and Hachibi was still sleeping. They seemed to come and go, but he had little doubt that when the moon was fully exposed and not hidden by the clouds, they would become vicious killing machines in the next few months unless he could find a way out of this world.

Gaara got changed, put the sleeping Hachibi into her pj's and got into the comfortable bed they had slept in just under a week ago and went to sleep, curling himself protectively around his little sister's sleeping form.

Gaara's dreams were plagued by demons of their past and, ironically, the demon of the present. He felt glad when both of them were woken by Draco Malfoy walking into the room with a ghostly pale face. He spotted their two pairs of open eyes and as soon as he sat down on the bed opposite Gaara and Hachibi's shared one he started to talk about how someone had attacked two people named 'Crabbe' and 'Goyle', which Gaara realised were probably the names of the boys he had beaten half to death not more than an hour before, Hachibi read this thought and gave him a tired smile as a gesture of consolation. After a few more minutes of the one sided conversation Draco too got ready for bed and turned off the magical lights.

Gaara was just happy he didn't have to explain why they were in this room. It seemed that the ringleader had a bit more sense than the goons. Or at least enough sense to check the door for his name.

As he drifted off again, Gaara couldn't help but laugh silently at the irony of what Draco had told them regarding the attack earlier. The teachers had declared that the two brutes had had a fight and knocked each other out. Gaara was just hoping they wouldn't ramble on him when they awoke, otherwise he would have a hard time explaining what happened without revealing everything. They were already oddities in this strange school, they didn't need the extra attention that declaring a demon lived inside of them would bring.

Again his dreams were haunted by evils better left unexplained until he woke in the middle of the night. This time there was nothing too cause the awakening other than the horrors in his mind and the bloodlust that seemed insatiable at that point. He had woken with the same grin on his face he had earlier that night, except the only thing he could direct his fury at was the sleeping teen in the next bed. He reached out with one hand to uncork his weapon but as his fingertips grazed the dry material he suddenly came to his senses and withdrew his hand.

Once again he tried to sleep but wasn't able to, for fear of killing the sleeping boy in the other bed whilst unconscious. He decided to stay awake all night and play with his sand, it had been a while since he had been able to and he needed a little practice otherwise he might have gotten rusty.

Whilst he toyed with the form of the almost liquid sand he started to think about their family and friends back in the Elemental Nations. He hadn't given them much thought whist they were stuck in this foreign world, it was too painful. But now that he did, he wondered what was happening, if they were looking for them, if they were okay.

Gaara continued his thoughts long into the night whilst he practiced his control in more ways than one.

The next morning found Sabaku no Gaara still sitting on his and his sister's shared bed playing with a small measure of their sand, Hachibi still sound asleep on his lap. The only sign of the rising sun came through the submerged window at the side of the room showing the dark murky water that was starting to light up into a shade of green that seemed to fit the room precisely.

Over the night Gaara had almost gone on a killing spree twice more, and Hachibi had woken up in tears around twice and almost gone on a killing spree three times, but Gaara had been able to fight off the urges and calm his sister down each time. He tried to think of places they had seen that would be able to hold them, even without their sand, but all of the doors looked to flimsy and they could easily find their way to the others in the school.

It wasn't much longer, after the sun had risen, that Gaara was disturbed from his peaceful thoughts by their roommate.

" How are you doing that? Can your sister do that too?" Draco exclaimed excitedly, having seemingly awoken a few seconds prior and had watched the new male redhead manipulate his sand without a wand. Draco pondered on whether this could be the reason the mysterious new boy and his sister had been admitted into the school three years into the usual line of education and had been taken to get their supplies with the new defence against the dark arts teacher. They obviously had no relation to the scruffy man, by the looks of them and how they held themselves. Gaara's demeanor was not unlike his own, in the sense that both of them held a large air of confidence and superiority and something else he couldn't quite place yet. Then there was the little girl currently asleep in her brother's lap, she had the same air as her older brother just, less restrained, newer.

Gaara was startled when he was interrupted by the, now awake, blonde boy who had wide eyes like a child looking at an item of extreme interest. Gaara, with a flick of his hand, sent the sand back into the gourd and re-corked it before turning to the intrigued roommate. Slowly he nodded.

Draco was baffled. A nod wasn't what he had had in mind; surely the boy and his sister could communicate in some manner. But he didn't want to press the matter, the last thing he needed were enemies for roommates. Also, Gaara was a great deal scarier than his normal company, despite his size and handicap, and Draco could tell that if you messed with his sister you would pay dearly so he didn't want to anger him this early on.

Gaara decide now was a good as time as any to get out of bed so he gently poked Hachibi's forehead, making her eyes open and making her sit up groggily. For once he was glad that he was practically immune to sleep deprivation as he and Hachibi walked down to the showers and washed the grime off from the day before, as well as the blood he had picked up before bed, fortunately no one had noticed the red stains except Hachibi. They then reentered the room to find Draco had also left, presumably either to shower like them or check up on his henchmen, but he was almost certain it wasn't the latter, Draco just didn't seem like that kind of person.

By the time the toweling off Draco returned, Gaara was ready for the day and was helping Hachibi with her robes, after he finished that, he just needed to strap their sand to his back and they'd be ready for anything, unless it involved running, because whilst wearing the school uniform he doubted he could run much faster than the average person.

After they were all ready, Draco said he'd take Gaara and Hachibi to the Great Hall for breakfast where they would also get their timetables for the following year. True to his word Draco led his roommates to the Great Hall to eat. Draco, as he walked in front of the mysterious twosome, noticed that Gaara had brought his big sand. . . thing with him.

When they arrived they earned more strange looks than Gaara and Hachibi had the night before as they walked in, Gaara carrying their gourd and looking even angrier than before, if that was possible. The visible unintentional and undirected malice had been caused by the mostly sleepless night Gaara had to endure the previous night. Both of them could survive and function without sleep but their mood rapidly worsened when they went without sleep.

They sat in the same seats as the night before, or close, it was a bench so it wasn't really exact. The biggest difference was that this time, Draco sat on the other side, with Gaara and Hachibi, as he'd seemingly taken a shine to them, as well as Crabbe & Goyle still being in the refermary, and the wizarding nobility couldn't very well sit on his own as far as Draco was concerned.

They ate with relative silence between them, until one Harry Potter entered the Great Hall. Draco took time out of his eating to call a few insults over to the Gryffindor table regarding the famous teen's fainting spell on the train the previous day. Gaara tried to ignore the childish behaviour, both of them did, but they were soon roped when Draco had turned back around and started to jabber about how the 'idiot' was also a wimp and such. He asked for the newcomers' opinions and being the kind and meek boy Gaara was. . . he uncorked their gourd allowing the sand to flow out freely. A ball of sand the size of a football was formed before the cork was replaced. By this point he had most of the people in the Great Hall staring at him or the ball of sand a few feet above him. Draco was one of the many students staring wide eyed at the orb.

The sand morphed into words above the red-haired boy with his arms crossed and a prominent scowl set upon his face, ' Did you face the dementors last night?'

As the mentioned boy read the message in the air he couldn't help but blush slightly as the entire Great Hall seemed to expect his answer.

" Well. . . no, but. . . never mind." After that he turned back to his food and both Gaara and Hachibi did the same, leaving the sand to form a ball once again and stay in the air above them, floating with a slight rotation to it.

Neither Gaara nor Hachibi were ones for humiliating people but both of them had had a rough night and when Gaara saw someone being such an antagonistic hypocrite he wasn't in the mood to let himself or Hachibi suffer their idiocy. There was also something else that made Gaara uneasy about the boy they were rooming with, nothing supernatural but something equally disturbing and almost familiar that made him wary, though he couldn't put his finger on exactly what it was.

Not long after they had finished the spectacle, which had still rendered the hall motionless and silent, which both Gaara and Hachibi seemed to have a knack for, Mcgonagall approached Gaara and Hachibi with a prominent frown almost as deep set as Gaara's own.

" It is against school rules to use magical artefacts outside of assigned lessons. Being new is not an excuse!" The stern deputy headmistress scolded in her strong scottish accent, " Please remove this-" she didn't quite know how to describe the gourd on Gaara's back as he sat their with his arms crossed and a decidedly defiant look about him, "-artefact," she settled for, " and give it to me now."

Her order was all but ignored as Gaara didn't do anything.

Minerva was about to reprimand the boy but instead the girl moved, pointing her finger upwards in a lazy, uncaring, but seemingly frustrated manner. Mcgonagall looked up carefully, remembering a similar incident with the Weasley twins several years prior with floating water bombs, and not to mention the Marauders' mischief, that sent chills down her spine. Above her wasn't a prank of any kind but instead a message written in sand letters that said,

' He won't give you our sand,' the letters reformed after the first part, 'and it is not an artefact,' once again the sand broke into a mist like state before reforming back into discernible letters and words, ' My brother and I move this sand with our own power.'

The senior staff member was shocked by this; to use that high level of control was almost unheard of and to be done with two new students with no training, one of them not even at kindergarten age yet, and without the use of a wand; it was terrifying for the Hogwarts professor. The same was true for all of the students of Hogwarts who had seen the messages in the air.

Mcgonagall walked off looking to be in an even worse mood than before. She was going to have to talk to Albus about these siblings presence after all of her classes were done, to think a toddler had stood up to her like that. Gaara and Hachibi didn't even get to turn around to quietly finish their breakfasts because their head of house, Severus Snape, came walking down the hall with a scowl that seemed to be apparent on all of the teacher's face that morning, well, except Hagrid who still looked cheerful.

Snape deposited the pile of paper he had been carrying into the lap of one of the seventh years, walking back to his seat not long after. The seventh year didn't look at all pleased to be chosen for the prestigious job of handing out the student timetables during what was supposed to be his breakfast. Gaara noticed, as he finished of his toast and juice he had been given, that professor Lupin wasn't eating with the rest of the staff yet again. He assumed the man was preparing for the lessons he would be teaching on his first day of work. 'Defending Against Dark Arts' or something akin to that, Gaara checked his and Hachibi's new timetable and saw that they weren't scheduled for that lesson that day, not until later in the week. The first wizarding lesson they would receive was Divination and it seemed to be with another house, Gryffindor, as were all of their lessons, not specifically Gryffindor but always with at least one other house.

Before they left the Great Hall, Gaara recalled the sand back into their gourd and recorked it seeing no need to waste chakra keeping it suspended. Fortunately it seemed as if Draco had gotten off his embarrassment at his hands earlier as they all left together.

Once they had left the Great Hall, Gaara, Hachibi and Draco walked back down to their dormitory, Gaara and Hachibi leaving Draco to speak the password to enter, and into their room to retrieve their books for the first few lessons that day. By the time they had walked from the bowels of the school to the stone steps leading up to the North Tower, one of them was sweating profusely and out of breath, and it wasn't the one with the gourd of sand on his back or the one with the shortest legs.

As Gaara and Hachibi were led up the ancient stone spiral staircase to the North Tower for Divination he noticed the constant hostility between Slytherin and Gryffindor. It seemed childish to him, but so did the hostility between some of the Elemental Nations. Draco seemed fairly restrained compared to the night before when he had openly and proudly taken any chance he could to snipe at Potter and the other Gryffindors. Gaara guessed it was because of the absence of the goons Draco had kept with him before. Gaara had to admit he wasn't as annoying when the others weren't around.

When Gaara and Hachibi passed through the old doorway into the Divination classroom at the top of the stairs, the first thing the tanuki-hosts noticed upon entering the room was the overpowering stench of incense and fragrances that made them want to deposit their breakfast all over the pillowed floor. They saw that most of the others entering before and after them were suffering a similar reaction to the smell, although maybe not as severely. Both Gaara and Hachibi literally stumbled to one of the numerous cushions littered around the room with almost no grace as they fell. There didn't seem to be any chairs in the room so Gaara and Hachibi concentrated on breathing through their mouths instead of noses as they hoisted themselves into more comfortable sitting positions on the soft royal purple pillows. Draco sat between them and the rest of the Slytherins so he could get away from the conversations from the others and cultivate a friendship between Gaara and him, maybe even the whelp, who he decided were worth his time if only for the power both of them possessed, which seemed all the more potent from the display that morning.

Gaara was more or less of the same opinion, even as antisocial as he was, he did try, on occasion to create bonds of friendship with people, much to the delight of his doting sister and mocking brother, even though most of the time he was doing it for Hachibi's sake. He decided at that point he would try and at least attempt to become more. . . social in this world, if only for the sake of him and Hachibi becoming better people for when they got back home. Unable to continue his current thoughts, Gaara was dragged back to the harsh, smelly, reality that was first period Divination.

Not long after the poor red-heads had sat down, a tweedy little woman who looked more jittery than a blonde-Jinjuriki being followed by a ghost, entered. The curly haired woman walked into the room at a quick pace, only taking time to look at her new students one by one in rapid succession. Gaara was a little disturbed and Hachibi was downright freaked out by the way the woman gasped and started to harass one of the overweight Gryffindors about his dead grandmother, or something to that effect. Gaara couldn't concentrate with all the perfumes in the air. After she had seemingly read the boy's, Neville's, future, she stopped scrutinizing the rest of the students. Instead she went to the front of the circular room and introduced her subject as well as gave a speech on how it was all true and definitely not fake. Gaara wasn't exactly convinced about that.

Trelawney went into the back room whilst the students, who could talk, talked about how much of a crackpot she was; this even extended to the usually quite mild mannered Gryffindors who would normally stick up for such people from what Gaara had seen and heard. Even if they could have, they wouldn't have joined the conversation though; they weren't really ones for passive verbal aggression. Every once in awhile Malfoy would turn to Gaara for his opinion, usually expecting a positive expression from the boy, only for Gaara to ignore him or disagree with him. Gaara wasn't trying to annoy the platinum blonde; he just didn't want to mislead anyone into thinking he cared on what others thought on the subject, well, except for Hachibi, he cared about anything she wanted to talk about.

When the woman re-entered she was carrying a tray with around twenty or so tea cups and a pot of boiling water, Gaara and the smaller lookalike at his side lightened up at this. They could really use some tea to clear their noses of the smell that permeated the room, the stench that they just couldn't get over.

All of the students crowded around a few desks leaving two or three to each short table and each person got a cup with tea leaves in it and were asked to get out their books and turn to page five: ' Reading Tea Leaves'.

Sybil Trelawney then went around the room depositing hot water into the cups and asking the students to drink the tea. Some looked almost horrified to have to drink tea, but Gaara and Hachibi just leisurely drank theirs whilst flipping through their shared copy of the required textbook. Gaara and Hachibi were fairly fortunate that the courses they were taking weren't too knowlege based as they hadn't been there in the previous years to study them. The only things that they had to worry about was potions which was apparently the only subject that relied on any science, that and that they hadn't even used their wands yet but Gaara was hoping they would get the hang of it sooner rather than later.

Gaara and Hachibi were finding the tea refreshing, having come from a culture where it was perfectly normal for children their age to drink tea. They had quite a taste for the hot beverage, which was more than could be said for most of the other students who had probably only ever drank fruit juice, water and maybe the occasional hot chocolate.

After everyone had finished their tea they were instructed to read through their textbooks and match the symbols in them to the shapes the tea leaves in the bottom of their cups had taken. Needless to say, Gaara wasn't impressed. He had been handed Draco's cup not long after the orders were given, Hachibi getting his and Draco getting hers, and Gaara could only see a vague, blobby ambiguous shape in the tea. But Gaara didn't want to start up an unnecessary problem with their teacher on their first lesson of their first day, so he looked through his book again, and picked the most unimportant and unconcerning fortune he could find, Hachibi, doing the same thing, picked one that said Gaara would be happy in the coming months, which he wanted to believe and highly doubted at the same time. The one Gaara chose was essentially ' work hard and the future could be promising', no actual meaning but would get the teacher off his back, and Hachibi's too. The subject itself was ludicrous in the first place, in the red-heads' opinions, and from what Gaara could hear around the room, many of the others in the class agreed with him. Draco seemingly did the same as he flipped through the book and stopped on a random page and read the fortune on it. Gaara actually smiled a little at the others antics, and Hachibi was trying not to laugh. He was sure now, that Draco wasn't as annoying without the other idiot Slytherins around him. He even managed to go the majority of the lesson without antagonizing Harry Potter at all, although he had done none of the assigned work it seemed to be a widespread practice in this class from the continuous quiet conversations circulating around the tower.

The talking immediately ceased when a clatter resounded throughout the tower, followed by a loud gasp, emanating from Professor Trelawney who was currently standing above Harry Potter's table examining one of the tea cups. Gaara and Hachibi were on the other side of the room so they weren't sure whose fortune it was but Gaara's suspicions were proven correct when she turned to the boy who lived and started ranting about, " The Grim!"

Along with a few others in the class, who weren't to shocked by the unfolding scene, Gaara flipped through their textbook and came upon the sign of a ' Grim,' the shape of a silhouetted dog that foretold a very unfortunate and suitably titled grim future. The silence that had engulfed the room was almost stifling for most of the students, but Gaara and Hachibi, on the other hand, were enjoying the awkward peace that reigned as it was one of the few times since they arrived that they had been able to collect their thoughts without the noisy distractions around them.

After the silence had ended Trelawney spent a few moments trying, in vain to console the unnerved Potter, though it seemed to all like a token gesture towards a dying person, before moving on with a sad look upon her face. She roamed around the room, not really stopping to look at anyone else's tea cups; this was until she came upon a certain Slytherin trio's table. She might have looked depressed before and after her previous reading but now her face looked completely devoid of any emotion. She looked to be on autopilot, approaching Gaara, Hachibi, and Draco, who were warily watching the tweedy looking woman as she walked towards them. The entire class had gone silent, all waiting and watching for the next dramatic fortune telling. The only noise that could be heard was the heavy almost unnatural wheezing of the woman who was seeming less like a fake after each prediction.

" What?" Draco demanded an explanation for the strange behaviour but he wasn't even acknowledged as Professor Trelawney continued to focus her seemingly large eyes on the red-headed mutes.

She paused when she was right before the tiny table and gasped in another heavy breath after which she spoke in a tone very much unlike her usual tone, " They, who are part of ten, killers of a hundred killers, will destroy the foundation and overwhelm death itself!" The surprised room of students were as motionless and silent as the dead, as they tried to process the cryptic message of the future from the teacher they had previously dismissed as a fraud. The gaunt looking woman continued in her supernatural tone soon after, " The seven bonded will die, for the final moments will reveal a darkness hidden," This time she took a larger breath, the climatic moment approaching, " -unless evil overcomes evil and good prevails. . . He will return!"

Of all the students, Gaara and Hachibi were the most shocked. When Gaara came back to his senses, with a double blink of his pale green eyes, he put on his typical stoic expression and watched as the others started to come out of the startled state the seemingly genuine reading had left them in whilst calming down the shaking form of his little sister.

Not long after the second dramatic reading, the class was over and the students began filing out of the room looking slightly ill, much like Hachibi and Gaara, though, they were sick of the smell whereas the shinobi were troubled by their teacher's concurrent prediction. . . . and the smell. In all honesty, Gaara didn't care about the first of the first of the omens, Hachibi, of course, wanted to meet the dog, the aptly named 'Grim', mostly because neither of them cared about the Potter boy and that particular fortune had seemed pale compared with the second. The second, aimed at them, as far as Gaara could tell, seemed about as genuine as one could hope for a reading of the future. The entire class had been noticeably shaken by the predictions by the time they exited the classroom, though most of them were more startled by the depressing prediction directed at the hero/celebrity Harry Potter. In Gaara's opinion the boy-who-lived seemed a little too naive and nosy for his own good, Gaara doubted that if he had a little sister like Hachibi he wouldn't take as good care of her, but he had decided to bear with the celebrity teenager as he was Sirius' godson.

So far, Harry had tried to stay out of the way of the small, scary looking, mysterious elder transfer student and his little follower as much as possible. And the fact that they had been sorted, if that was the correct term for what happened the night before, into Slytherin, didn't sit right with him. But, the boy-who-lived had to admit the older one didn't seem overly evil or snobby, unlike most other Slytherins, like Draco Malfoy, perfect example, who seemed to have taken a liking to the mute additions to their year group, and the girl, even Harry had to admit, she was pretty innocent looking for someone in Slytherin, if it weren't for her older brother, he doubted she would even be in Slytherin. Harry just hoped that Draco didn't turn the older one into a butt. Then again, the prophecy made in the previous class unsettled him as much as it unsettled the rest of the class. Not only had his death been predicted in the tea leaves but also the second prediction of the future that seemed even darker than his own. Harry went with the crowd and gave Gaara and his little sister a wide berth as he went to his second lesson, with Mcgonagall.

Gaara and Hachibi were walking on their own down to their second lesson of the day, Potions. They had been lucky enough to have the locations of the classes for that day included on their timetable as well as the names of the teachers instructing the subjects as well. They were about halfway down to the dungeon; fortunately they already knew the location of the damp underbelly of the school, when Draco caught up to them after having walked with a group of his peers with whom he had been chatting. Draco seemed almost calm after the eventful lesson as he started another one-sided conversation with Gaara, being cautious not to mention the surely sore subjects of blood purity or of the prophecy that had been spoken not more than ten minutes before.

As they made their way down to the lower levels, Gaara and Hachibi had been subjected to many not-so-subtle whispers and points along with the good-ol'-stares. They were fascinated, the students, by the new transfer students who had used sand, of all things to communicate that very morning with their suspect appearance and the strange circumstances surrounding their transfer along with the rumors of the prophecy that were already beginning to circulate; which, combined, made them one of the four most discussed topics in the school, though they were definitely the top topic. Coming in at number two was the elusive escaped mass murderer Sirius Black, at number three were the dementors of Azkaban who were patrolling the grounds of Hogwarts, at number four were the two Slytherins in the hospital wing.

Back to Gaara, Hachibi, Draco and the other Slytherins, along with half a class of Hufflepuffs in a dank dark potions room, awaiting the arrival of Professor Severus Snape, Potions Master of Hogwarts and detestable excuse for a human being in most of the students' opinions.

He had swept into the room with a scowl deeply set upon his face, which seemed to deepen more when he spotted the crimson-haired monster twosome whom he'd already taken a drastic disliking to.

" Well if it isn't the silent wonders." He mocked as he rounded on the desk Gaara and Hachibi were sitting at. The two shinobi weren't too bothered by the mockery of the staff member as their mood was already starting to lift. The fact that there were stools in this classroom instead of chairs meant Gaara could continue wearing their trusty gourd on his back where it belonged. " Should we expect any other miracles today, or can we get on with the lesson?" He asked, and by the length of pause following his inquiry, Gaara assumed that one of them was expected to answer, which was another insult all by itself due to their obvious inability to do so.

Gaara settled for glaring at the man while waiting patiently, Hachibi doing the same. Snape smirked as he strutted to the front of the room thinking to himself that he'd won the encounter. Even a few of the Slytherins had the gall to snicker at the bullying and had thrown nasty and snide looks at Gaara and his little sister, the elder of which who, after Severus had finished making his way to the desk at the front, had turned his own attention to removing the heavy gourd on his back after he had been told by the only adult in the room that every student was to walk to the front of the cluttered and dank room and collect the ingredients he was writing on the board, thus necessitating the removal of the bulky object for the time being.

The older red-head noticed with a smirk that after he had walked to the cabinet at the front of the room, people were walking past his and Hachibi's desk were avoiding their sand like it was going to jump up and bite them. He could have made it do that, but the teacher already seemed to have a great measure of loathing for them for whatever reason and using the already-frowned-upon-sand to injure one of their fellow students seemed foolhardy despite however much enjoyment they might have taken from doing so, and he just barely managed to keep Hachibi from actually doing it.

After he had picked up the items listed on the blackboard, which he couldn't recognize from name alone so he simply selected the same things as anyone else, he made his way back to the students who, from the looks on their faces, seemed only slightly afraid to be near him, also giving his little look alike a wide berth as well because they didn't want to risk angering either, and back to his seat where he deposited his armload of potions equipment and ingredients. Draco appeared soon after with his own equipment.

The tanuki host watched as Snape started to write the baffling instructions onto the board leaving most of the class looking almost as befuddled as him and Hachibi. So, on an effort to avoid failing they attempted to copy what their classmate was doing.

Attempted being the operative word.

Draco Malfoy wasn't particularly gifted in potions, despite what his grades and teachers' compliments might lead one to believe. But no matter how untalented Draco may have been at brewing potions, the two youngest of the Sabaku children were ten times worse, at least. It was probably the same reason they were also unable to cook even the simplest of recipes. Gaara and Hachibi had no brewing or cooking ability which probably explained why they hadn't killed their sister over the years. She may have been insufferable but she kept them fed.

It didn't escape Professor Snape's attention that Gaara and Hachibi were messing up their potion, obviously having no talent nor previous experience in the subject, and so he decided to do the kind thing. . . and ridicule the poor children like Mr. Longbottom from Gryffindor.

He swept over to Gaara and Draco's desk, deciding not to count the third little nuisance, to find that whilst the potion was supposed to be a bubbling pink substance, it was, in the red-haired children's case, a gooey green colour that occasionally released a noxious gas that made him gag. The only consolation about such a revolting potion being created was that his detested students, creators of said potion, seemed to be having a worse time with the smell than he thought strictly necessary, then again, he had worked with some of the worst smelling substances known to wizard so he might have lost some sensitivity in his nose.

He looked to his favoured student's cauldron to find a murky purple liquid in the cauldron that seemed about the same consistency of one of the perfected potions like his own or, he dreaded to say, Granger's.

Severus settled for mocking the child, or children, that he hated, on par with his loathing for Potter, by making subtle verbal jabs, " You incompetent. . . did you mix some of your oh-so precious sand in or are you just so inept that following a simple potions recipe is beyond what your strange little minds can follow?"

. . . . about as subtle as a drunken punch from Konoha's Green Beast.

" Well, why don't you answer? Oh, that's right, you can't. I don't understand why little freaks like you were admitted into this great school." Snape continued his tirade, long since forgetting the reason he had started. He had silenced the entire class, which for the third time that day had to stop what they were doing and focus their attention on the angry looking elder redhead who seemed to be getting more furious from the looks of his scowl and invisible eyebrows arching and shadowing his murderous eyes.

Gaara was so very close to performing a desert burial on this greasy haired man but was stopped when his attention was drawn to a small explosion that covered half the room in the green substance they had concocted. The red-heads were one of the few lucky enough to spared from being covered in the nasty looking liquid. Though, luck might have entailed that he didn't allow their sand to spring up and protect them and the platinum blond sitting behind the sand at the time. It might have been more accurate to say that Draco was lucky.

Snape couldn't fathom how the harmless ingredients listed on his, now green, blackboard had created such a repulsive mess. Also listed among his regrets for that day, along with letting the mysterious students into his classroom, was his slow reaction, because his slow reaction was the reason why he was now covered in his students' potion and which wasn't entirely ethical to spare his house's points where he would otherwise have decimated any other's chances of winning the house cup at the year's end, and if he gave Gaara and the little wench a detention he would have to let both of them back into his classroom again.

He was going to talk to Dumbledore that night and have these children removed and possibly imprisoned for the crime of being nuisances and monsters, among other things.

Gaara, Hachibi, and Draco, three of the few that weren't covered in the two formers' concoction, walked out of the potions room with smiles on each of their faces. The smile progressed as they walked until, as they reached the Great Hall, they were actually laughing with each other. Gaara's and Hachibi's were silent laughs but their faces were enough to make Draco double over in his own roaring laughter.

They gained quite a lot of attention as they entered the hall but it didn't phase the taller boy quite as much as it did Gaara and Hachibi. The shorter two had had quite and eventful day, even for them, and they didn't relish the prospect of having to sit through another hour of which they would be stared at, questioned and in all likelihood, scorned. With this in mind Gaara turned to Draco who was still sporting a grin and pointed in the opposite direction the Great Hall was and when the platinum blonde inevitably questioned he waved and walked away, Hachibi right on his heels.

As they left they couldn't help but smile a little more as they relived their past lesson. They hadn't laughed like that in quite some time, too long, in fact.

They walked straight out of the front entrance of the school and continued walking until Gaara couldn't hear anymore voices. He then sat down, with Hachibi on his lap, under the closest tree and tried to gather their thoughts. The day wasn't even halfway finished and they had already pretty much destroyed one potions laboratory, had an unsettling and ambiguous prophecy made to them and made a name for themselves throughout the entire school. And they still had one lesson to go.

Caring for Magical Creatures didn't sound too difficult. They couldn't be that dangerous compared to some of the things they had met in the desert over the years.

' At least we don't need our wands yet.' Gaara thought to himself and Hachibi as he removed their gourd from his back and set it beside the tree so he could lean back. ' We need to get some practice with these,' Was his next thought as he pulled out the longer black stick and started to examine it, Hachibi, agreeing with him pulled hers out as well. He knew they couldn't do it whenever they wanted because the use of magic was strictly monitored and he didn't want anymore hassle. They seemed to be getting enough of that on their own. They would need to wait for the night to try using them.

Gaara looked up at the sky and couldn't help but think about their own bright blue sky, remembering fondly a few months prior when they had actually been berated by Temari for staying out, under the burning sun, for a few days straight. She had the best intentions when she lectured the predictably bemused Jinjuriki about wearing a hat or at least taking shelter every few hours. He had then needed to convince her not to try and make them wear some of Kankuro's spare hoods, though he had to admit, Hachibi did look cute in one. She couldn't have made them but it would have been troublesome had he not promised her that he would take care of himself and his little sister.

Now that he was thinking of home, he started to think of their main mission whilst at Hogwarts. They hadn't really had a chance to look for a way home yet, but they had plenty of time for that. He didn't really expect the task to be simple as they had to search for an answer without any help whatsoever. He didn't want to tell anyone that they were from another world because, like telling them a demon was sealed within them or that they used to be serial killers, it would just cause problems for them and draw unnecessary attention. They might be kidnapped or arrested for being monsters or aliens or something like that so he decided he would just rather try and solve their problems on their own first.

Gaara was forced from his musing and Hachibi forced from her thoughts of Temari when both felt a presence that was unmistakable in its infinite evil, an aura that they hadn't felt since they were back in Suna. Worse than a hundred dementors, this feeling that was crawling up their spines could only mean one thing.

Fangirls.

The young red-heads had had to deal with a fan-club before, the Sunagakure chapter. They, along with the various assassins, had been the bane of their existence for the last few months, ever since they stopped killing people. And even then, Gaara had heard rumors that it had started before that.

The short teen and his little sister looked around and saw what they dreaded; a group of around twenty girls were slowly making their way towards them. It was at this point that they decided to make their exit and leave, quickly. When Gaara stood up with Hachibi in his arms they started to walk towards him and her faster and more excitedly. The tanuki teen brought his hands together, eliciting more squeals and questions from their fanclub that got even louder when Hachibi copied, and moved their fingers into the tiger seal above each of their chests. Suddenly, they disappeared along with their gourd and a flurry of sand.

Gaara and Hachibi reappeared just inside the main entrance where they could hear the loud screaming and squealing that was more than likely to have caused a few cases of deafness in birds around the school.

Deciding that they weren't willing to deal with more fangirls Gaara walked back to their room in the belly of the school to pick up their textbook for their final lesson of the day, seeing as lunch was almost over.

He put down Hachibi and they walked back through the school, deciding along the way that if they ever became the Kazekage by some bizarre and unlikely miracle, they wouldn' t change the Kazekage building at all. All of this walking would be exhausting for civilians.

They made their way outside, where it said class was on the timetable, to the edge of the so-called Forbidden Forest, which they recalled being warned not to enter the previous night by the headmaster. When they reached the area, they found the rest of the class arriving, all holding their textbooks with utmost care and each carried expressions of dread on their faces. Ever since Gaara and Hachibi had received the ' Monster Book of Monsters' from the fearful and surprisingly injured sales assistant, they had been careful not to open it as it didn't seem to like being touched if the growling and snarling were any indication.

When the majority of the class was present, excluding the stragglers, everyone seemed to be talking, always talking. Gaara and Hachibi had both always enjoyed the tense silences that could be found in the perpetually sandy village they called home. One notable conversation was between Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter, each with their own lackeys for backup, though Draco had had to find temporary replacements apparently. Though, a discussion wouldn't have been the correct term, it was more along the lines of mockery, one sided of course. . . .

Once again Draco seemed to be mocking the trio of Gryffindors and like the previous night it was regarding the fainting spell on the train as a reaction to the dementors harrowing effects. They, Draco and a few unknown Slytherins distracted Potter long enough to pull up the hoods of their robes and perform a satirical " Oooohhhh" looking marginally like the creatures they were mocking.

After the near fight, Hagrid had appeared with a great thumping as his colossal feet hit the ground. He instructed them to stroke the spine of their books in order to soothe their frightful temperaments. Gaara did so, but not before uncorking their gourd so he'd be ready for a sudden, and biting related, it seemed that they had a way with this world's animals, including the hardback and paperback variety. By the time they had reached the page Professor Hagrid had called out the book was literally purring in their hands.

The page they were reading, silently, like all of their other activities, was about a species of magical creature called a hippogriff. Gaara wondered why the gigantic new professor hadn't been allocated a classroom and was beginning to suspect it wasn't because of his kind and meek nature when the giant man started to march forward with the rest of the class trailing behind him whilst trying to open their monstrous books without being attacked viciously, though for the poor minority it was in vain.

By the time the entire combined class of Slytherins and Gryffindors had arrived at a clearing within the surprisingly well lit Forbidden Forest the gourd baring red-head was sure it was going to be a practical lesson, he surmised by the looks of the large hippogriffs standing around the clearing. They each looked to easily be the size of a horse and had the head of an eagle along with talons bigger than most kunai. They were moving towards Hagrid who had stood at the front of the class, in between them and the animals, and was explaining that they were proud and dangerous. That rung a bell with Gaara but he couldn't place a familiar description.

Rubeus continued his explanation, showing quite a bit more ability than the two shinobi would have credited him with from the brief encounters they had as well as the giant's appearance but he seemed about as proficient at teaching as Snape, but without the irritating personality and damp classroom. The time came for a demonstration as he called for volunteers from the students to approach one of the deadly looking creatures. Gaara and Hachibi, along with the twenty or so students around them took a large step back, leaving one student standing at the front of the class.

Gaara and Hachibi unnoticably smirked as they looked upon the startled face of Harry Potter who was moved forwards by Hagrid's massive hands. Harry was forcibly moved towards the closest hippogriff, Buckbeak if Gaara had heard correctly. As instructed Harry walked forwards further and bowed lowly to the half bird, half horse creature which wasn't immediately returned, causing the teacher to start to panic and start to approach the student and animal hoping to avoid an incident on his first day of teaching. Fortunately he was going to avoid losing his job as the bird head started to lower until the beak was practically touching the ground, causing almost the entire class, minus most of the Slytherins, to breathe a great sigh of relief.

Before anything else could have possibly happened, Hagrid lumbered over to the, still shocked, teen and picked him up causing the black-haired Potter to start to object, especially when he was sat atop the large bird-horse. As he voiced the last of his objections the professor slapped the hippogriff's behind like one would do to its horse counterparts and like a horse it started to gallop away from the group, its wings starting to flap.

Soon after, the hippogriff with the supposed saviour on top of it flew away and out of sight. Gaara and Hachibi looked back towards their teacher and weren't surprised to see a big smile on his face.

About five minutes after the screaming boy-who-lived had disappeared he returned, landing almost in the exact same spot he had taken off from. Hagrid walked over and helped him down before pulling what looked like a dead weasel or pheasant off his coat and throwing it to the animal a few feet from him. The bird head chomped on it happily before walking away a little ways, back to its heard.

Hagrid had leaned down towards Harry and his friends before standing back up straight with a pleased look on his face. Gaara and Hachibi hadn't heard what he had said due to them still standing with the Slytherins who looked decidedly less impressed than their rivals at the flight of one of the students. Their disapproval of the apparent achievement grew to such an extent that Draco couldn't hold it to himself any longer. He started to insult the hippogriff, Buckbeak, whilst approaching it. He called it an overgrown turkey and ridiculed it in many other ways, none of which were advisable if the shouting and terrified face of their magical-creature-expert teacher was a sign.

Gaara and Hachibi were running forwards before the talons of the enraged hippogriff left the ground and by the time they were about to strike Malfoy, who raised his forearm in a terrified attempt at self defence, Gaara had already uncorked their gourd again and Hachibi was making it flow out and in front of the terrified aristocrat's son. The sand formed a rough shield to block the razor sharp claws from doing any harm to Draco. After the unsuccessful strike, Buckbeak landed back on its feet before walking away looking as angry as Gaara had ever seen a bird get.

Hagrid looked more than just relieved that no one was hurt, so much so that he didn't stop to question the shield of sand that had since dissolved and been drawn back into the gourd from where it originally sprung. Unfortunately the sand had not gone so unnoticed by the rest of the class who seemed determined to ask them all kinds of questions that they had no doubt they had wanted to ask since this morning. As they, the entire class, walked towards them, Gaara picked up Hachibi and backed away quickly and walked towards the hippogriffs and Hagrid who had since gone to check on them and thank whoever was listening for not having to explain to an angry Lucius Malfoy that his son was almost maimed.

Rubeus noticed the scary silent students approach him and his herd of hippogriffs and by way of an apology and to show gratitude for saving his rear, he turned to Gaara and Hachibi and asked, " Want to ride one of these beauties?"

Gaara shook his head, not wanting to leave their gourd on the ground where it would most likely be toyed with and possibly broken by the arrogant and, for some, jealous students.

Unfortunately for the sand Jinjurikis, Rubeus Hagrid smiled and undid the strap running across Gaara's chest for him before hastily picking him and consequently Hachibi up and depositing them on one of the hippogriffs; despite their silent, frantic, protests.

The hippogriff didn't seem to be too happy with the pairing either, much like the red-heads who were still being held onto the bird-horse hybrid. Gaara couldn't help but notice that the giant hadn't let them go through the bowing ritual that Harry had had to go through before, Hagrid was obviously too excited with not being in trouble to follow his own procedures.

Before either, magical creature or perturbed demon containers could voice, or, in the two latters' cases mime, any of their protests and profanities at being forced to ride/carry the others, Hagrid slapped the giant horse's butt sending it into a veritable charge ending much the same as the previous one, in the sky.

Gaara and Hachibi had to close their mouths as they flew through the sky, being utterly shocked to have been thrust into the air on this strange foreign creature. Gaara gripped Hachibi tightly with one arm whilst he held strongly onto the feathers on the back of the eagle like head as the owner of the head swooped through the air. Just as they were starting to enjoy the feeling of flying through the air, like the wind that their country was famous for, Gaara jerked suddenly as the bird dropped down to just above the tree line causing him to accidentally tear out a few of the feathers he had been holding.

Suffice it to say, that didn't end well for the two short crimson haired sand siblings.

In mid-air, the startled and angered hippogriff started to swoop faster and more excitedly, like a bull trying to forcibly eject a irritating cowboy. Gaara almost desperately tried to get a better grip on the feathers on the back of the squawking beast's neck; but even that effort couldn't prevent them from being thrown over the bird head and falling twenty feet through the air before hitting the top of one of the countless trees that made up the deepest area of the Forbidden Forest. They hit the top of the tree wishing they had sand, as the coming fall would have hurt a lot less. As they brushed past the highest branches Gaara tried to stick his feet to the tree trunk whilst also trying to shield Hachibi but they were falling too fast, which was made painfully clear as they started to impact on the lower, thicker part of the spine.

Gaara, being the wise ninja he was, had learned from his mistakes and had remembered to activate their sand armour before being forced onto the giant bird horse, which was probably the only reason they were conscious after hitting the hard cold ground. Though he was conscious, he wished he wasn't as the armour had taken the brunt of the potentially fatal fall but left him with a dislocated arm and a possibly broken leg, as well as plenty of bruises, Hachibi's injuries weren't as severe, but still pretty bad, she had a large gash on her right leg that went from her heel to her knee, and her left arm was bent the wrong direction, probably broken, and had plenty of bruises. The worst part was that he didn't have enough sand with him to carry them, nor did he have enough time to sit around and make more. Hachibi was crying profusely as Gaara pushed himself, using the nearest tree, to his feet and started to limp through the dangerous forest. He wasn't worried, walking through the woods which were renowned for being incredibly perilous in this world, as, even with the limited sand they had coating their bodies, he could still defend them.

He continued limping through the dense growth of roots that comprised the forest floor until he could hear the faintest shouts of the giant who had put them on the beast in the first place. At that point it had been nearly two hours since their take off and almost one and a half hours, unbeknownst to Hagrid and the other students who had stayed behind after the classes after the day had ended to look for the absentee new students, since Hachibi had passed out. Gaara started to walk towards the voices that couldn't have been more than a mile or two away when he heard a low rumbling, almost like an earthquake but more localized. It was off towards the mountains but whatever it was; Gaara decided it sounded distinctly angry. Deciding not to dwell on nor investigate the rumbling noise whilst he had so little sand, he moved on. It didn't take too much longer to get back to the opening in the Forbidden Forest where they had left over two and a half hours before, despite what he was beginning to suspect was a twisted ankle as well as the broken leg and dislocated arm. Ninja had to continue no matter how injured they were, and he had heard tales of ninja who had marched onwards after losing limbs. The only reason they were struggling so much with the injuries was because they had only started getting injured during missions in the last year-or-so. Ever since the Chunin exam they had been sent on more dangerous missions resulting in the damages to their bodies. But it was still rare that they were hurt this badly meaning that by the time he was spotted by their teacher he was about ready to collapse.

Hagrid had been so worried for his students that by the time he spotted a patch of blood red past the trees, over two hours after they had disappeared, he hadn't stopped to think that not only were the kind Gryffindors helping him look but also the usually cold and distant Slytherins, who were known to be almost as callous to their own as they were to everyone else. For them to have been searching must've meant a very good sign or a foreboding one.

The giant bounded towards the limping stumbling Gaara, who was still holding the unconscious Hachibi, followed soon after by the search party, comprised of most of the Gryffindors, Draco Malfoy and all of the Slytherins that the latter could blackmail. The redhead was less than happy to see Hagrid as he firmly placed blame for his and his poor baby sister's most recent suffering, but he didn't have the luxury of standing still long enough to kill or maim the man as he needed to get to their sand before he passed out. If both of them were going to be unconscious in this school they needed to be close to their sand. He couldn't leave himself and Hachibi defenseless, because he knew, after the eventful day they had they weren't safe.

When the group neared Gaara they all, including the stoic purebloods, simultaneously gasped when they saw the deep dark cracks that webbed across the glaring teen's face as well as his hands and presumably everywhere else on his body, his little sister, Hachibi, looked the same.

" Gaara, what happened? What happened to your face?" Hermione pried, a perfectly normal action for her.

" I knew it!" Exclaimed Ron at the mute teen's silence, misconstruing the lack of immediate explanation for the cracked face and disappearance as a sign of guilt. " He's an imposter, look at his face! Even the girl is!" he pointed in righteous indignation, " And remember on the train and the way they use that sand he's always carrying around! And they don't speak to anyone!" He had blurted out the entire discussion at an ear splitting volume pushing the accused into further pain and displeasure.

" They're mute Ronald, they showed us the scars when we met him in the Leaky Cauldron." Gaara almost face palmed as Granger explained their continued silence.

Throughout the entire encounter Gaara hadn't stopped stumbling forwards to wear they had been forced onto the hippogriff despite the wall of students seemingly trying to block his advances, obviously trying to get him to lay down or explain before he hurt himself more.

" But look at his face 'Mione!" the orange haired teen bellowed once more, the last time such an outcry was sounded as he received a swat to the back of the head for his troubles from the aforementioned girl.

" I'm sure he has a very reasonable explanation for that," Hermione said, almost patronisingly to her friend, " They might have a skin condition or maybe-" She was cut off when Gaara moved his hand and, despite his reluctance to do so, removed some of the sand covering his face to show that he looked the same underneath it, he did the same thing to Hachibi. He collected the sand, as it dissolved of of their faces, in his hand before he commanded it to recover the pale skin once again. They had been fortunate not to earn any bruises on their faces as they were sure to be purple and encompassing over their small bodies.

" They're made of sand!" One of the other students gasped making Gaara question the previous years of teaching as the student didn't seem to be quite as bright as the average person, even Konoha's Green Beast hadn't accused him of being 'made of sand' and he wasn't exactly a genius.

Fixing another glare at that student, Gaara noticed the pile of sand on the forest floor, the gourd having been obviously broken while they were gone. He recalled the sand to him, it reforming into their gourd in midair before being strapped to his back on the leather brace. A look of fear passed over most of the students, soon turning to a look of absolute terror as he let some of the sand drift up to form shapes. They seemed to think he was going to attack them, and while it was tempting it isn't what they did. . . anymore.

' Its armour.' The sand spelt out again. Oh how he loathed their inability to speak. Thankfully for them, it was only an inconvenience and not crippling.

The message caused a look of realisation to pass over the previously startled teens before it vanished again when one of his fellow Slytherins asked him about his and Hachibi's disappearance.

Gaara was amazed some of these people were able to dress themselves with such simple minds, but then again, they probably used magic for that.

He used the sand to morph into new words, simple enough to conserve chakra and his precious time, time that was quickly running out before he would pass out, ' We fell.' All of the student's expressions, minus some of the more composed Slytherins and ever optimistic teacher shifted into more embarrassed and surprised.

It was at this point that Gaara decided they were safe enough so he slipped out of consciousness to the sounds of startled shouts and the feeling of being picked up. His last act was to command the sand to protect them.

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Astral- Please review! If you don't, we starve!


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